


Homecoming

by EachPeachPearPlum



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Awesome Morgana, F/M, Family, Happy Ending, Infidelity, Jealous Arthur, M/M, Meddling Friends, Returning Home, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 13:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5249498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EachPeachPearPlum/pseuds/EachPeachPearPlum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Merlin discovers that Arthur and Gwen's daughter is not actually Arthur's, he knows his options are staying and destroying Arthur's life, staying and lying to Arthur until one or both of them dies, or running the heck away.</p>
<p>Four long years later, Morgana orders (though she would say invites) Merlin's new housemate to her wedding, and Merlin finds himself dragged back into the life he ran away from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> All the love in the world to [texasfandoodler](http://archiveofourown.org/users/texasfandoodler/pseuds/texasfandoodler), who did the truly incredible [art](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4770227) for this fic. Not only is she a fantastic artist, she is also a beautiful human being who has somehow managed to bring herself to work with me not once, not twice, but three times, never mind that I am unreliable as anything. She never said no to anything I asked for, even when half my requests were damn-near impossible, and I beg you all to go check out her artwork and tell her how amazing she is (and also see the series of beautiful dividers she made that I can't figure out how to insert into the fic...).
> 
> Texas, I am so sorry this took me so long, and I would understand three thousand percent if you never wanted to work with me again. I'd be heartbroken, because you are awesomesauce, but I would understand.
> 
> To those of you who have been waiting so long for the link to this fic, I apologise again. I hope so very much that you enjoy it.
> 
> Love, Px

It’s still early when she wakes up, the air full of singing birds and the sound of February drizzle tapping against the window and the weak, watery light that comes with it. For a moment, Gwen wonders if it is the birds that woke her, or the snuffling snore of the man lying beside her, but then her phone bleeps again, the sound plaintive, pleading, and coming from somewhere on the floor.

Slowly, so slowly, she lifts the arm draped protectively around her waist and slides out from under it. She doesn’t take the sheet with her, because even if Lancelot can sleep through the bloody birds and her phone begging her to answer it, the sudden lack of warmth as she steals all the covers will probably be enough to wake him. Anyway, after last night, she’s not really got anything left to hide.

By the time she digs her phone out of the scattered mess of their clothing, it has fallen silent again. She doesn’t bother to unlock it, knowing already the name that will be attached to the missed calls, instead putting it on the windowsill while she wriggles back into her knickers and bra; it’ll only be a moment before Arthur calls back, and Gwen can’t talk to him until she’s a little closer to being dressed. Her blouse follows, and she’s partway through fastening what few buttons survived yesterday evening when Arthur rings back.

She steps into the hallway before answering, glancing once more at Lancelot’s sleeping form as she closes the door behind her.

“Oh, thank God,” Arthur says, before she even finishes saying hello. “Guinevere, please, I’m so sorry.”

I’m sure you are, Gwen thinks, but saying it will only sound sarcastic, and that’s not how she intends it. She believes him – since Arthur rarely apologises when he is genuinely sorry, there is no chance at all of him doing so just because he thinks it’s what it’ll take to get her to go back to their home – but that doesn’t change anything. She believes him, and she does love him, knows that he loves her in return, but it isn’t working, a blind man could see that.

“Arthur,” she starts, and has no idea how to continue. There’s nothing, she thinks, that he can say to persuade her to return to their house, to keep trying at a marriage that stopped working the day they decided to start their family, but it’s just as unlikely that anything she says will convince him not to try.

“Please, Gwen,” he says again, her Arthur, her husband, proud and stubborn and begging her as he’s never begged anyone else. “Please, I know you said we should spend some time apart, but please, Gwen.”

“Arthur,” she says again, this time forcing herself to carry on. “Arthur, you know that I love you, but it’s not working.”

“It can,” he says, as desperate as she’s ever heard him, and it hurts, it really does. “I can do better; we can work this out, please. Just give me another chance.”

She doesn’t answer, can’t, because what is there to say? She meant it when she said ‘til death us do part, meant it more than she has ever meant anything in her life, and she’s never doubted that Arthur did, either. But the arguments about everything, whose turn it is to do the dishes, whose fault it is that they’re late to anywhere they’re going… the arguments and the ugly words and the sex, perfunctory and dull, solely for the purpose of creating the child she isn’t even sure they ought to be having anymore.

“Please,” he says again, begging again, begging her the way he’s never begged anyone in his lifetime, not Morgana or his father or even Merlin, the only person Gwen’s ever really felt she could have to compete with for Arthur’s love. He’s begging, and Gwen doesn’t know how refuse him, doesn’t know how to say that she wants more, wants someone who will look at her like Lancelot did last night, like she’s the most beautiful woman in the world and everything he could ever want, whether she’s dressed to her best or scruffy and tear-stained, ready to leave the house or slump into bed. She wants to be in love again, truly, madly, deeply in love, the way she’s forgotten how to be with Arthur, and…

“Please, Guinevere,” her husband says, and Gwen doesn’t know how to refuse.

* * *

She’s still standing just outside the bedroom when Lancelot emerges, her eyes fixed on nothing and everything, trying to pretend she’s not crying.

“It’s okay,” Lancelot says, just as soft as last night, just as gentle, and for a moment Gwen just wants to shriek at him, arguing that it’s not and never will be okay. That she’d forgotten what it was like to feel beloved until she turned up on Lancelot’s doorstep last night and he took her in without a word, that she loves him.

She loves him.

“It’s okay,” Lancelot repeats, folding her into a hug that Gwen isn’t strong enough to pull herself away from. “Gwen, love, it’ll be okay.”

 

* * *

 

“Take her, would you?” Gwen says, shoving her and Arthur’s screaming bundle of joy into Merlin’s arms.

Merlin, too slow in his attempt to protest (no one trusts him to carry glasses, let alone a pet, so why the hell is Gwen handing him her tiny and oh so fragile daughter without considerable advance warning?), attempts to juggle an armful of baby and stay out of Gwen’s way as she fusses about preparing a bottle for Yasmin.

“Shush,” he says firmly, and then laughs a little, because she’s far too young to understand, let alone obey. “Shh, love,” softer, this time, and he jiggles her gently, the way he’s seen on TV, hoping that it will be as effective as it looks, because otherwise he’s going to have a horribly noisy weekend ahead of him. “Mummy’s just getting you some dinner, just be patient.”

Yasmin continues shrieking, but she reaches out and grabs his hand, all four of her tiny, tiny fingers curling around his thumb and squeezing with impressive force for someone so small.

“Sing,” Gwen says. “That always quiets her down, even when she’s hungry.”

Merlin looks blankly at her (singing? Him? He shared a house with Gwen when they were in uni, knows she’s heard him caterwauling in the shower, and yet she wants him to sing to her daughter, tiny and fragile and impressionable?), then sighs, because if he’s ever doubted how scary Gwen can be when she’s serious, her pregnancy was sure as hell enough to clear that up. “Sing what?” he asks, resigned.

“Anything,” Gwen shrugs, taking the bottle out of a bowl of hot water, only to refill it and put the bottle back in again. “Just something, please.”

Merlin does his best, tuneless though that may be, and slowly Yasmin quiets, softens, the red of her face lessening and her eyes gradually becoming less scrunched up and oh. “Her eyes are brown,” Merlin sing-says, not willing to stop whatever vague tune he’s managing in case she starts up again, even as the question won’t be stopped. “They were blue when she was born, weren’t they? Much more like Arthur’s.”

“That happens,” Gwen tells him softly, her own brown eyes gazing intently at him, her right hand shaking just a little as she removes the bottle again, some maternal instinct apparently letting her know that it’s now time to do so; Merlin hopes she’s written down the instructions, because she’s doing everything far too quickly and far too competently for him to remember when it’s his turn. “Lots of babies have blue eyes when they’re born. It doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way, and it doesn’t mean anything that hers haven’t.”

“Right,” Merlin answers, finding himself a little startled by the intensity of her voice, quiet though it may be. “Right, I know that, but...” He glances from Gwen to Yasmin and back, from one pair of brown eyes to another, and huh, they don’t look all that much alike either, for all Merlin finds something familiar about his little goddaughter’s gaze. Still, she’s only a few months old, and, to be honest, Merlin kind of thinks most babies look the same, once you get past basic differences in gender and colouring and size; he shrugs, winces when it upsets Yasmin a little, and resumes singing.

“Dear God, what is that noise?” Arthur asks, pushing open the door to the kitchen. He’s dressed more scruffily than Merlin has ever seen him, hair visibly uncombed, shadows under his eyes that speak of so many sleepless nights, and yet Merlin has rarely seen him smile so widely, so utterly in love with his little family. “Guinevere,” he announces a moment later, after the second it takes to register Merlin standing there. “Please tell me that isn’t my daughter you’re allowing Merlin to hold.”

The sentence sits funny in Merlin’s mind, but not for any reason that he can think of, and no one else seems to notice anything odd about it; Gwen laughs, reaching for Yasmin and jiggling her just so, making childcare look so enviably effortless. “Merlin has agreed to look after our daughter for a couple of days. I’m not entirely sure how you expect him to do that without holding her.”

Arthur stands behind Gwen, wrapping his arms around her and their daughter, looking down at them, his world, and the happiness on his face almost breaks Merlin’s heart.

* * *

What breaks his heart more is that Yasmin can’t seem to survive without her parents being around. Gwen has Yasmin’s bag already packed, anything Merlin could possibly need to take care of a six-month-old there and ready for him, and yet not a minute after he gets her from the car to his flat house and calls Gwen (Arthur, really, but Merlin is going along with Arthur’s pretence that the worrywart is Gwen) to let her know they got there fine, Yasmin is crying. Not merely soft, pay attention to me whimpers, or whiny, change my nappy yelps, but proper, extreme, who are you and what they hell have you done with my mummy? shrieks, so much so that Merlin feels the need to knock on his neighbours’ doors and assure them that no, he isn’t doing a very poor job of murdering someone, honest.

Nothing quiets her, either, not Merlin’s singing or sticking on a CD, not changing her nappy or offering her a bottle, not burping her or rocking her or blowing her nose. She is just unhappy, eternally, unrelentingly unhappy, and Merlin wants desperately to call Arthur and Gwen and demand they come get her, even though this is the first night they’ve had to themselves since Yasmin was born, the first peace and quiet in months, and he knows he shouldn’t ruin it, he really does, but he can’t do this.

And then, as he’s pacing around his living room, holding Yasmin against his shoulder and gently patting her back, she stops, and Merlin is too relieved by the miracle to wonder what it is, at least until he turns around and she starts up all over again.

The baby gurgles when he turns again, a happy gurgle, and Merlin cranes his neck to see what she’s looking at. There’s only the wall behind them, but then it’s not really just a wall, is it? It’s the wall, the one everyone who comes into his flat stares at, and Merlin is proud of it.

He’s collected photos for what seems like forever, not boring things like landscapes and scenery, but people. If this was a couple of hundred years ago, Merlin would be in a hell of a lot of trouble for stealing souls, because the whole wall is photographs, and he knows exactly which one Yasmin has to be looking at.

“You know them, don’t you, love?” he says. Coos, if he’s being honest, but then Arthur’s spent years accusing him of being a pathological (if not particularly competent) liar, and now is really no time to change that fact. “It’s Mummy and Daddy, isn’t it?”

It’s his favourite picture, dead-centre. Arthur and Gwen’s wedding day, but all of them are in it. The proper photographer has gone, as have most of the guests, and it’s just them left. Arthur and Gwen, looking just as happy and almost as exhausted as they did after Yasmin’s birth almost four years after this photo was taken; Morgana and Leon, pretending they’re not making eyes at each other across the room; Lancelot, who spent most of the day looking like his heart was breaking but managed to summon a genuine smile from somewhere by the end of the night; Elena and Percival and Elyan, fancy clothes still showing the remnants of the food-fight one or all of them started; himself, wrestled out from behind the camera and into the limelight, or as little of it as he can manage to hide in.

“Look,” he says, juggling the baby as he turns around so that both of them can see the photo. “There’s your mummy, doesn’t she look lovely? And Daddy, too, he was a right grumpy prat that morning. The silly idiot was worried that your mummy doesn’t really love him, or that your grandpa – not Grandpa Smith, the other one. Grandpa Grumpy, you haven’t met him yet, have you?”

He pauses, too caught up in his monologue to remember that a happy gurgle and a fist swinging into his shoulder (her father’s daughter, through and through) are all the answer he’s going to get, then picks up again. “Your daddy was worried that your grumpy grandpa would find a way to stop everything, because he’s too silly to see that Mummy is the loveliest lady ever. He was happy by the time this picture was taken, though, your daddy was. Happier than I’ve ever seen him, at least until you came along, love.”

And if there is something close to sad to those last two sentences, something lost, lonely, almost painfully empty, well, what is a baby going to know? She has no idea what he’s saying, anyway, but still Merlin can’t stop talking as he moves his index finger through the air above the photo, moving from face to face.

“And there’s Aunty Morgana,” he says. “She’s a scary one, she is, but she loves your mummy more than anyone and your daddy almost as much, so she’ll never, ever let anything bad happen to you. Uncle Elyan, your mummy’s brother. He doesn’t always look like he’s forgotten his bib, but I think Elena and Percival decided to gang up on him. Leon, and one day he and Aunty Morgana are going to work things out, and then you’ll have lots of little to cousins to play with, instead of just us boring grown-ups. But you’ll have to be nice to them, not like your daddy, okay, otherwise Lan…”

And there Merlin stops, because he’s just figured out where he recognises Yasmin’s eyes from.

* * *

“Hush, love,” Merlin says, rocking the screaming, shrieking baby in his arms. “It’s okay,” he promises her, even though his very being belies the words, from the tremor in his voice to the heavy thud of his fist against Lancelot’s door.

“It’s okay,” he promises, internally begging the child to stop crying and Lancelot to open the door and whole fucking universe to stop trying to ruin Merlin’s life. “It’s all going to be okay.”

Eventually, some combination of shrieking infant and Merlin’s pounding gets an answer, though the man who peers at Merlin through a crack in the door barely resembles Lancelot. “Merlin?” he says, paler than he has any right to be, exhaustion drawing lines across his face and painting dark shadows under his eyes; Lance might have been so busy at work that it’s been a while since Merlin’s seen him, since any of them have, but this isn’t right, isn’t how Lancelot normally looks, and Merlin so desperately hopes he’s wrong in thinking he knows why. “What’s…?”

He trails off, staring at Yasmin, and the desperate question Merlin was going to ask dies in his throat, all his prayers for this not to be what he thinks it is shattering unanswered at his feet.

“Your daughter’s crying,” Merlin says, his voice so bland he might as well be commenting on the weather outside, failing utterly to reflect the final, last-ditch hope of Merlin’s heart, the hope that Lancelot will look at him with blank, uncomprehending eyes and this will all be nothing more than a moment of sheer madness on Merlin’s part.

“I…” Lancelot starts, still staring at Yasmin, and Merlin has never known a single syllable to contain more horror or greater guilt than that one does. “I- God, Merlin, I can explain.”

For a very brief moment, Merlin is too incredulous to speak, and when his thoughts and voice reappear they’re just as shocked. “Explain?” he asks, about as high-pitched as Yasmin’s wails and almost certainly less dignified, if only because no adult – man or woman – should be capable of that sound. “She’s Arthur’s wife, Lancelot! They’ve been married years, and they’ve been trying for a baby almost as long, and… You! You had your chance with Gwen years ago and you blew it, and now… I thought you were a good person, Lancelot. I thought you both were.”

“I…” Lancelot says again, his heart on his sleeve the same way it always is, every feeling plain as day across his face, and Merlin knows what it is to be in love with someone who loves another, how much it hurts to see them with someone else, but he’d never. Even if – by some twisted, beautiful miracle – Arthur was interested, Merlin wouldn’t. He just wouldn’t. “It wasn’t like that, Merlin. It was an accident.”

“Right,” Merlin says, scathing and cold and so fucking furious it’s beyond description. “What, Gwen tripped and your dick just happened to be in the right place to catch her?”

“No, I-”

“I don’t care, Lancelot,” Merlin cuts in, and Lancelot’s mouth closes with an almost audible snap. “I don’t give a damn how it happened, or why, but you better make goddamn sure that Arthur never finds out because knowing the two of you betrayed him like that will break his heart.”

“You aren’t going to tell him?”

“It’ll kill him to find out,” Merlin says, staring at the tiny, tiny thing in his arms, altogether too small to make anyone as happy as Arthur has been since she was born, too fragile to have the power to destroy so much. She’s so tiny, and so loud, and Arthur loves her and Gwen so, so much. “I can’t do that to him,” he says quietly, and even quieter is the, “But I can’t lie to him, either,” that follows.

“Merlin…”

“Take her,” Merlin instructs, holding Yasmin out at arm’s length until Lancelot obeys. “Her stuff is all here,” he adds, waving at the bags on the floor around him, the car seat and the bassinet and everything else Gwen and Arthur thought he’d need for the couple of nights he agreed to look after their daughter.

“Merlin,” Lancelot says again, as the baby reaches up a hand and twists it determinedly into his shirt. “I’m so sorry.”

“Goodbye, Lancelot,” Merlin says, turning his back on the pair of them.

He’s gone by morning.

**Four years, two months and twelve days later (Merlin can probably manage hours and maybe even minutes, too, but that’s just a little more pathetic than he’s comfortable with admitting to being)**

Merlin unlocks the front door to his and Gwaine’s house, turns the handle, and then gives it a good kick approximately three inches up and six inches from the left, right on top of the shoe prints already left there. It does the trick, and he shoves the door open, hearing the whisper of paper against the floorboards as whatever junk mail they’ve received today is pushed aside.

His laptop bag goes in the alcove under the stairs, as per usual, shoes cast aside haphazardly next to it, and only when he’s flung his coat over the banisters does he bother to scoop up the post, flicking through it idly: pizza menu, broadband advertisement, yet another letter for the person who lived there before they did, a council tax bill, and a posh, off-white envelope addressed to Mr G Greene, Esq.

The menu goes in the drawer with all the others, the broadband crap and the letter straight in the paper recycling bin (they’ve given up on trying to return the letters, since it never seems to work, and if it was at all important they should have let companies know they’d moved), and Merlin tacks the bill to the cork board in the kitchen, figuring they’ve got at least a week to compare bank balances and figure out who’s going to pay it this month before the final warnings start showing up.

The only mystery is Gwaine’s letter, far fancier than anything either of them has ever received here before; unlike Merlin, Gwaine has a fairly hefty family, a good few of whom have enough money to waste on expensive envelopes like this, but he’s not on speaking terms with most of them, and those who do bother to contact him are more likely to go with Oi, fuckface than they are esquire.

Still, it’s not his to open, so Merlin just props the envelope up against the kettle and rummages in the fridge for something still safe enough to eat.

He’s almost done shaving a block of cheese and using the remains to disguise what was probably chilli a few days ago when Gwaine shows up, carrying a bag that clinks not quite musically as he deposits it on the worktop.

“Beer?” he says by way of greeting, grabbing a bottle from the bag and offering a second to Merlin.

“We have bills, Gwaine,” Merlin answers, taking the bottle anyway, because God knows Gwaine doesn’t listen, maybe doesn’t even know how.

Gwaine shrugs, resolutely standing between Merlin and the microwave. “They’ve got overtime going in the warehouse,” he says, supremely unconcerned by both the way Merlin sighs as he skirts around him and the fact that between Gwaine’s inability to stick out a job longer than two months and Merlin’s not quite minimum wage misery, they’re barely making it from one pay cheque to the next. “Time-and-a-half on Saturday, double on Sunday.”

Which would be great, Merlin thinks, if Gwaine didn’t have the attention span of a toddler; it was always a toss-up as to whether Gwaine would stick it out long enough to get bored of doing the same job week after week and move on of his own accord, or if his latest employer would give up on him before then.

“Right,” Merlin agrees half-heartedly, because he knew what Gwaine was like when he decided to share a house with him, and there’s no point in trying to change things now. “Guess it’s your turn to keep us from being evicted, then,” he continues, smiling reluctantly. “And, while you’re at it, you can do the food shopping, too.”

Gwaine laughs, necks the rest of his beer, then swaps the empty bottle for a couple of fresh ones and two sets of cutlery. “Bring the food through when you’re done nagging, Mum,” he says, planting an elbow in Merlin’s side as he passes him, his smile so unbothered that Merlin can’t help answering it.

* * *

As so often happens in their kitchen, Gwaine’s letter sifts its way from the top of a stack of papers to the bottom, then back up again, and it’s just over a week since it arrived when Merlin chases the smell of bacon from the kitchen to the living room and finds Gwaine hogging most of the sofa, staring at the envelope like he’s trying to laser his way into it.

It’s not worth the effort of asking him, Merlin decides, nor can he be bothered to point out that the easiest way to find out what any letter contains is to open it, not when there’s a giant mug of coffee and a plate of bacon and pancakes waiting for him. “Morning,” he says, shoving Gwaine’s legs out of his way and ignoring the grunt he gets in return in favour of eating.

Only when he’s finished does he realise that he’s not had to protect his grub from Mr Grabby Hands, something that is always more suspicious than it is cheering (and it’s not that he’s not glad, it really isn’t, but Merlin knows his housemate well enough to be on his guard). Looking up, he sees that Gwaine has not only opened the envelope but finished reading its contents, and is now peering at Merlin with a speculative expression that is far more worrisome than the absence of sneak attacks on Merlin’s breakfast.

“What?” he demands, maybe a little too hostile, but then nothing good ever follows that look.

“Nothing,” Gwaine answers, too quickly to be reassuring, then shakes his head. “My cousin’s getting married next month, and her dad’s this total wanker, really hates me.”

“So don’t go,” Merlin says, though he realises how futile it is to suggest it, is pretty sure he knows how this is going to end, and it’s most likely going to involve him wearing a suit.

“That’s one option,” Gwaine answers, already wheedling, his eyes huge and pathetic. “Except Annie’s pretty much begging me to go” – he holds up a sheet of paper, waving it around enough that while Merlin can tell it’s a handwritten letter, he can’t make out what it says – “and since she’s probably the nicest person I’m related to, it’d be a shame to let her down.”

“Then go, and stay away from her dad,” Merlin says, presenting the next obvious suggestion with just as little hope.

“Or I could show up with a mate, have a great time, and totally horrify the old git by pretending said mate is my date?”

“You could, but said mate will not be me.”

“There’s a free bar?”

“I’m not you, you know. That’s hardly going to persuade me.”

Gwaine pouts for a second, then rallies. “They’ve already paid for the hotel,” he says. “It’ll be like a holiday, except way nicer than anything either of us could ever hope to afford.”

“I’ve been on holiday with you before, Gwaine,” Merlin answers, though a run-down hotel somewhere not quite in the vicinity of Blackpool is hardly likely to be in the same league as whatever Gwaine’s (extraordinarily rich, judging by the quality of her wedding invitation) cousin has picked. “And no matter how nice it is, they still won’t want me sleeping in the lobby while you and some particularly drunk wedding guest make use of the bedroom.”

“Would I do that to you, Merlin?” Gwaine asks, looking as innocent as he knows how, but in Gwaine’s case an innocent expression only increases the chance that he’s guilty of something. Merlin doesn’t answer, just gives him the eyebrow the same way Uncle Gaius used to when Merlin and Will broke something and wouldn’t ‘fess up to it, waiting until Gwaine gives up pretending. “Okay, fine,” he concedes, pouting again. “Maybe that happened once-”

“Three times,” Merlin interrupts. “And who knows how many other times you locked me out that I didn’t find out about.”

“-But I promise this time I’ll go to their room instead.”

“I don’t know whether I should find it endearing or terrifying that you think that was the point of this discussion,” Merlin answers, but he’s smiling by now, giving in without meaning to, without even being sure he wants to, but maybe that’s not a bad thing; as utterly infuriating as Gwaine can be sometimes, ninety percent of the stuff Merlin gets dragged into by him actually ends up being a laugh, and God knows he could do with a break from work, particularly if someone else is going to pay for it.

Gwaine laughs, the nutter. “Don’t lie, Merlin,” he says, already realising that he’s won. “You find everything I do endearing.”

“Tosser,” Merlin answers, grinning. “Give us your plate; I’ll do the washing up.”

* * *

The thing is, Merlin figured he’d regret it. He regrets every dumb thing Gwaine suggests, even as he begrudgingly enjoys it, and going to Gwaine’s cousin’s wedding to freak out Gwaine’s homophobic uncle is just going to be another thing on the long, long list.

He figured he’d regret it when he was getting kicked out of the lobby for loitering (again), or when Gwaine forgot that Merlin had a key to the room and didn’t put the Do Not Disturb notice on the door, leaving Merlin to walk in on his housemate and a random stranger doing things Merlin would prefer not to witness (again). He figured he’d regret it when he let Gwaine convince him that the water in the closest lake/river/pond/ocean wasn’t actually all that cold (it was) and that skinny dipping was a great idea (it really, really wasn’t), or when he was calling Uncle Gaius to bail them out after they got caught (and maybe all the charges were dropped last time, but that doesn’t mean Merlin wants to push his luck by doing it again).

He knew he’d regret agreeing, but he had thought it would only start when they got there.

Now, though, as they’re blasting up the motorway (speed limits are for other people, never for Gwaine, and so is worrying about miles-per-gallon and the only slightly less than ridiculous cost of fuel), Merlin’s regretting it already.

He hasn’t been up this way since he left, hasn’t even let himself think about it, because that isn’t his life anymore. And maybe his life now borders on sucking, maybe his job is duller than watching paint dry and his friends consist entirely of Gwaine and the weird old guy who works in the corner shop and insists on giving Merlin bizarre relationship advice no matter how often he argues that he’s single and doesn’t really plan on changing that any time soon.

Maybe it’s not the life he wanted, the one he saw himself living back when the future was something to look forward to, but it’s something, and what he told Lancelot all those years (four years, three months and eight days) ago is still true. He couldn’t have lived with himself if he broke Arthur’s heart by telling him the truth, nor could he have spent the rest of his life lying to Arthur every day by keeping it a secret, which meant there was only option left open to him and so what if he damn near destroyed himself in the process?

He hasn’t been back, but now, driving past the massive shopping complex and the television mast and the power station, all the markers of nearly home that he used to look out for after a long journey, he’s already regretting allowing Gwaine to drag him into this.

“Where- where did you say your cousin lives?” he asks, his voice only shaking a little, and it’s ridiculous, really, it is. It’s a motorway, pretty much the country’s main route from north to south, and they could be heading anywhere, carrying on miles and miles past the life Merlin left behind.

“Didn’t,” Gwaine answers, but he’s already slowing down, sticking on his indicator and looking for a gap large enough to wedge the car into in the inside lane. He grins, lets out a little ha! of accomplishment as he makes it in just in time for the junction Merlin always used to take, whether he was going straight home or stopping off at Arthur and Gwen’s, Morgana’s or Lancelot’s or any of the others, and Merlin doesn’t need to hear the name of the town Gwaine finally tells him to know where they’re going.

He knew he’d regret agreeing to another of Gwaine’s dumb plans, but this one, he’s not even sure he can survive.

* * *

It’ll be fine, he tells himself, torn between staring at all the familiar, unchanged places and hiding from them, and from the people he might recognise or who might recognise him. It’ll be fine, he thinks, as Gwaine drives them past Arthur’s favourite chippy and Morgana’s hairdresser, by the park where Gwen and the rest of the guys used to play five-a-side every other Saturday while Merlin and Morgana pretended to either know or care about who was winning, taking a right at the pub where they went for drinks after.

He’ll just stay tonight, Merlin agrees, even if he’s only making the bargain with himself. He’ll stay this one night, order room service and not leave the hotel, and then tomorrow he’ll go to the wedding and make up an excuse to leave after the ceremony and before the night do. Gwaine’s going to be pissed, sure, but he forgives as easy as anything, probably won’t even mind too much after Merlin points out that he’ll have the hotel room all to himself and his conquests, and Merlin can just get a train home, never once coming into contact with the people who were once his world.

It’s just one night. It’ll be fine.

* * *

After driving down what seems like every road in Camelot, Gwaine finally manages to find the place he’s looking for, a tiny hotel Merlin vaguely remembers Morgana talking about, once upon a lifetime ago. It’s way fancier than anywhere he’s ever stayed in his life, even more than he was expecting it to be, and from the way Gwaine pauses briefly as they step through the door, it’s not exactly what he was prepared for either.

The man at the desk looks them both up and down, his eyes lingering on Merlin’s scruffy jeans, Gwaine’s leather jacket, the untidy collection of bags that are all the two of them own, and Merlin doesn’t need to see the smug, self-important smile on his face to know what he’s about to say.

“I’m sorry, sirs,” he says, sounding anything but. “We don’t have any vacancies at the moment. I can provide you with directions to the closest Travelodge; perhaps they’ll be able to accommodate you.”

Gwaine’s answering grin is just as obnoxious, although very slightly less smug, and - unlike the concierge - he’s good looking enough to get away with it. Still, when he eyes up the man and opens his mouth, Merlin thinks he should probably take over before the silly git can say something offensive enough that the fact that they’ve already got a room booked and paid for won’t be enough to let them check in.

“That’s okay, thanks,” Merlin says, hoping his smile is bright enough that the snobby git won’t notice Merlin ‘accidentally’ stomping on Gwaine’s toes. “We’ve got a reservation, in the name of Greene.”

The concierge glances down at the computer on the counter before him, tapping briefly at the keyboard, and for a moment Merlin thinks the fact that he managed to circumvent Gwaine’s not entirely unjustified rudeness won’t be good enough. Something on the monitor is enough to convince him otherwise, though, because the smile he suddenly decides to grace Merlin and Gwaine with is decidedly obsequious.

“My apologies, Mr Greene,” he says, sucking up the way Merlin remembers some people doing as soon as they found out Arthur and Morgana’s last name, but since he’s locating their keys with ruthless efficiency, Merlin doesn’t do anything more than vaguely wonder how rich Gwaine’s family actually are. “Please allow me to assist with your bags, sirs,” he carries on, joining them so quickly that Merlin can’t be entirely sure he didn’t just leap over the desk, then loading himself up with what is probably every single item of clothing the two of them own (Gwaine packed) before Merlin realises the absence of objection has apparently been taken as acceptance.

They’re in the lift within seconds, the overly eager concierge standing guard over the buttons, then leading them into a suite bigger than their entire house.

“I’ll leave you to make yourselves comfortable, sirs,” he says, taking advantage of the near-muteness his sudden about-face in attitude has caused. “If there’s anything you need, please just let me know.” He bows – actually, properly bows, with a level of sincerity and deference Merlin thinks should only be shown to deities or particularly attractive royalty – then clicks his heels together sharply and departs.

The silence continues until the sound of the concierge’s footsteps making their way back down the hall fades into nothing, at which point Merlin finally allows himself to meet Gwaine’s eyes, the two of them bursting into laughter.

“Efficient,” Gwaine says, just as Merlin begins to get his balance back, only to fall apart again.

“Just how rich is your cousin, anyway?” he asks, after the age it takes them both to calm down.

Gwaine blinks, like it hadn’t even occurred to him that Merlin might be wondering, then shrugs, looking oddly shifty, even for him. “Bit of a rude question, that, mate,” he says, staring somewhere over Merlin’s shoulder. “And not one I’ve ever asked, either. Does it matter?”

“No,” Merlin answers. “No, it doesn’t matter,” he repeats, because on the rare occasion Gwaine decides to keep mum about something, no force on earth can get it out of him.

Still, it’s weird.

* * *

Saturday morning dawns as bright as Gwaine’s cousin Annie could possibly hope for on her wedding day, the sky an unbroken stretch of blue from one horizon to the other, the breeze rich with the scent of spring sunshine and new leaves, and Merlin is awake horrendously early.

He can hear Gwaine snoring on the sofa-bed, almost as loud in sleep as he is awake, incapable of going more than a minute in the presence of a conscious person without irritating the hell out of them and, no, Merlin is not feeling at all charitable this morning.

Yes, it’s a beautiful day, and yes, he’s back in Camelot, probably his favourite place on earth, inhabited by the people he loves more than anyone else, but on a list of places he wants to be right now, this is the very, very bottom.

Once, so long ago, Arthur called him fearless. They were arguing over Gwen, over how stupid it was for Arthur to fear his father’s reaction to his relationship with her, and Arthur had yelled that not everyone could be as brave as Merlin, not everyone could be as comfortable with who they were regardless of how other people looked at them. Merlin had just laughed, had told him he was insane, and Arthur had shaken his head, muttered something about how maybe Merlin wasn’t fearless, maybe he was just too much of an idiot to realise there were things he ought to be scared of, but Merlin knows he meant it, and maybe it was true, once.

It was easy to be without fear back then, when his days were full of people who would be there no matter what, who would pick up the pieces if he broke and would defend him to the death if he needed them to. Now, though, he’s left all that, has only Gwaine and his mother and Will, and while Merlin knows they love him no less than everyone else used to, it’s not the same, not when Gwaine is beyond fear and Will’s idea of comfort is trying to get him laid and Hunith won’t stop asking why Merlin left and why he won’t go back.

It’s not the same, and Merlin is so scared he doesn’t think Arthur would even recognise him if he saw him today.

* * *

The church is somewhere Merlin has walked past a million times, though he can’t remember ever going inside. It’s nice enough, he supposes, though dark, a little oppressive, the same way most old English churches are, and all this is mostly irrelevant because they’re late.

By the time Gwaine had finally bothered to wake up, it was almost eleven, and then the git had insisted on taking the longest shower in the world (to be fair, though, the shower is beyond a doubt the best Merlin has ever used, with a heated floor and perfect water pressure, the temperature adjustable to a single degree, and more types of shampoo and shower gel and conditioner than he even knew existed; maybe Merlin struggled to remove himself from it, but he wasn’t the one who only got out of bed more than an hour after the alarm went off). After that, and the eternity it took Gwaine to get dressed and dry his hair, Gwaine insisted on lunch, eaten in the extortionately expensive hotel restaurant (apparently there was a credit card already attached to their room, to be charged with anything at all they wanted from the hotel’s extensive range of services).

At this point, Merlin thought Gwaine had finally cottoned on to how short on time they were, because he glanced at the clock on his phone every three minutes while they were eating. He didn’t speed up at all, though, even when it reached the time they’d agreed was the absolute latest they could leave, and yeah, Merlin knew how much Gwaine liked to make an entrance, but surely even he knew how rude it would be to steal the bride’s thunder.

Still, they’re here now, more than a little dishevelled from the brisk walk there, and Merlin avoids looking any higher than his shoes as Gwaine bundles them into the first empty pew, sitting close enough that Merlin feels just a little uncomfortable. “Sorry,” he mutters, his elbow jostling Merlin’s side, and the slight whisper of desperation in his voice has Merlin looking at him.

“What for?” he asks, and, even though he’s trying to be quiet, it’s still loud enough that the woman in front of them turns and glares.

Gwaine shrugs apologetically, shaking his head and mouthing the word later when Merlin looks askance at him, then taps a finger next to his eye and then points towards the front of the church.

Only then does Merlin look up, at the high, buttressed ceiling, at the whitewashed walls and the minimal religious decoration, the flowers that line the aisle, thick fronds of leafy green and deep purple blooms. Merlin isn’t sure what they are, but they’re beautiful, even if the few weddings he’s been to in the past tended more towards pinks and oranges, yellows and whites, lighter, brighter colours than these.

And then, finally, his eyes drift to the wedding party standing at the altar, the groom and his men neatly aligned, waiting patiently for their women to appear, and any air Merlin had managed to regain after their mad dash to the church is gone without a trace.

He’s halfway to his feet before he even realises he’s about to move, drawing every pair of eyes that isn’t already on him, but he can’t stay, he can’t, not when Gwaine has not only dragged him halfway back into the life he left behind, but all the way, right into the middle of the wedding everyone’s been predicting for years.

Gwaine’s hand strikes out with whip-like speed, clamping around Merlin’s wrist, at first just to hold him in place, then yanking, hard, until Merlin ends up sat half in his lap and half beside him. He bashes his knee loudly against the back of the pew in front of them, earning another glare from the woman ahead of them – who, actually, Merlin thinks he might recognise, a distant Pendragon relation of some unknown degree – and at any other time the pain would probably be enough to have him swearing but today, with Leon, Lancelot, Percival and Arthur staring at him from the front of the church, words aren’t really all that forthcoming.

“Sit down,” Gwaine hisses, though he’s already solved that problem, nudging Merlin the rest of the way out of his lap. Merlin wriggles, trying to pull his wrist free, which only makes Gwaine hold on tighter.

“I can’t be here,” Merlin argues, trying to keep it down, not because he wants to avoid getting glared at by Arthur’s great-great-whatever, however many times removed, but because Arthur can’t hear this, can’t hear how desperately Merlin is trying to get out of here. “Gwaine, let go, please.”

Gwaine stares at him, his expression searching, and Merlin realises then that he doesn’t know what it is he’s dragged him back into, wonders for a mad second if he is actually Morgana and Arthur’s cousin and Merlin being here is only a truly freakish coincidence. Then he remembers the letter inside the envelope, the way Gwaine had stared at him after he’d read it, and he knows it’s not an accident.

It’s Morgana. Of course it is.

The opening strings of Pachelbel’s Canon drain all the fight from Merlin, leaving him boneless and breathing again, though every gasp of air feels like a battle, one he’s not quite sure he’s going to win. Those in the church stand up, turning as one, until the only people not looking to the door are Arthur and Merlin, and Merlin knows why he’s staring, knows why he can’t stop, but he has no idea what Arthur could possibly be thinking, why he can’t seem to look away either.

The thing is, he’s imagined this before, wondered what it would be like to bump into Arthur one day, as unlikely as that would be. At the shops, on the streets, maybe even by some freakish twist of fate in Merlin’s office, even though a decent part of why Merlin picked the place was the knowledge that there was no chance of any of his old friends ever going there. He’s thought of what he’d say and how he’d say it, how he’d force himself to make eye contact even as he lied through his teeth, how hard he’d have to work to escape unscathed and without destroying Arthur’s life as surely as he has destroyed his own.

He’s imagined it, but he never actually thought it’d happen.

“Bride’s the other way,” Gwaine mutters, his mouth grazing Merlin’s ear, fingers tightening around Merlin’s wrist then falling slack again, not letting go but probably intending to be comforting rather than imprisoning now.

Slowly, Merlin pulls his gaze away from Arthur, half expecting it to ping back like he’s attached to him by elastic, but it doesn’t; turning away from Arthur a second time is not anymore physically difficult than it was the first.

The first thing he sees is the girl, Yasmin, and she’s spitting image of Gwen at her age, from the sweet smile to the curls spilling over her shoulders, barely contained by a ribbon braided with the same flora as lines the church. She practically skips down the aisle, green dress floating around her, and Merlin wants to turn again, wants to see Arthur and Lancelot’s faces as she approaches them. He doesn’t know what he’d be hoping for, doesn’t know if he wants the truth to be out or for Arthur to still be blissfully ignorant, blissfully happy, and only the fact that either possibility would make Merlin feel like his heart is being ripped still beating from his chest keeps his eyes glued to the door.

Gwen follows her daughter, looking like she wants to reach out to her, hold her back or maybe just hold her close, telling her there’s no need to hurry, the way she always did when Arthur went charging off somewhere and Merlin and Gwen were stuck struggling to keep up. She doesn’t, of course, because that would ruin the whole procession, and instead she just advances elegantly, smoothing one hand down a dress the same shade of purple as the flowers and smiling brightly; again, Merlin both wants and doesn’t want to turn around, wants and doesn’t want to know who answers her smile.

Before he can make a decision, Gwen has carried on past him, followed by Elena and a woman Merlin doesn’t recognise, dark haired and strong-seeming, the two of them walking close together, their hands not quite touching but maybe like they want to, both wearing dresses about the same cut and colour as Gwen’s, embroidered in a green to match Yasmin’s.

And, finally, there’s Morgana, though from the second he saw Leon standing at the altar looking impossibly nervous Merlin knew she’d be there, the orchestrator of Merlin’s presence here.

She’s as gorgeous as ever, not quite as terrifying as she is in Merlin’s memory, but maybe that’s the smile she’s wearing, small and subtle and at peace. It seems she and Uther have resolved some of their differences, over the last four years, three months and nine days (though Merlin probably has to stop counting now, will have to start again from zero once he’s safely out of here), because she’s walking arm-in-arm with her father the way she never would have done back then.

Her eyes never drift from the front of the church, from the man she’s been heading towards longer than Merlin can remember, but as she glides past Merlin and Gwaine’s pew, the hand not holding her bouquet darts out, resting briefly on Merlin’s arm.

* * *

“You did this,” Arthur murmurs to his sister as the photographer poses them in front of the church: bride and groom, best man and chief bridesmaid.

“I got him here, yes,” Morgana agrees, pausing to follow the instructions she’s given as she poses for the next photograph, leaning against her husband and gazing up at him with worshipful eyes that no one who has ever met her is going to believe are at all genuine; Arthur knows she loves Leon, wouldn’t have just married him if she didn’t, but there’s only one person Morgana has ever deemed worthy of worship and that’s herself. “It’s on you to make sure he stays, though.”

Arthur follows her nod in the direction of the gate to the church, where the slightly scruffy guy he saw enter the church with Merlin is standing, keeping himself to the edge of the group like he’s not entirely sure how welcome he is. Merlin isn’t with him, isn’t anywhere Arthur can see, and from the way the bloke stares at something down the street Arthur instantly realises they have a problem.

“Where?” he asks, because Morgana wouldn’t point out that Merlin is in the process of running away again if she didn’t know where he was going.

“The Avalon,” she answers, confirming everything Arthur’s just thought. “Room thirty-two, I believe, but you’d be better off waiting in the lobby. I can't imagine he’ll take well to being cornered in his room.”

He stares at her for a moment, wondering if he’s just supposed to leave now, go chasing after Merlin like he never had the opportunity to do last time. It’s Morgana’s wedding, though, and he’s the best man; if he takes off now, in the middle of the photos, he’ll never hear the end of it, never be able to spend a moment in his sister’s presence without her bringing it up.

“What’re you waiting for?” Leon asks, peering at him over Morgana’s shoulder, and on his other side Gwen is smiling, giving her permission even though he doesn’t need it any more.

“Now?”

Morgana smiles as well, that sly smile that says she thinks he’s stupid but is mostly willing to forgive him his idiocy as long as he does exactly what she tells him to, exactly when she tells him to do it. “Now is all you’ve got, little brother,” she says. “If you let him get away now, I don’t think you’ll get another chance.

Arthur stares at her a moment longer, leans down to pull her into a rough, hurried hug, and then he’s running, barely even noticing Merlin’s friend leap out of his way as he barrels past.

* * *

Merlin has been here before.

Maybe not here here, in this place, but in this headspace, desperately trying to wedge everything that matters to him into as few bags as possible, needing so urgently to be away before it’s too late to escape, before he says or does or becomes something unforgivable.

Gwaine’s car keys are on the coffee table, abandoned there with his usual disregard for anything resembling security (not that anyone in a hotel this posh would ever want to steal Gwaine’s shit-heap of a car anyway), but right now Merlin is grateful for that. He probably hasn’t got enough money on him to catch a train, but even if he did he doesn’t know the train timetables, not anymore, and he can’t risk the chance that he’ll be waiting there long enough for someone to find him.

Merlin needs to go, he needs to go now, and when Gwaine’s the whole reason he’s even here, the git more than deserves to get back to the hotel and find his car and his housemate gone.

He finishes shoving clothes into his bag and slings it over his shoulder, casting a brief glance around the room to check he’s not missed anything important, then leaves, making his way down the hall so quickly that he’s almost to the stairs before the bedroom door has even finished closing behind him. The stairs themselves he takes two at a time, practically running before he reaches the bottom, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t notice the other person in the lobby until he’s almost out the door.

“Surely you weren’t planning on leaving without saying goodbye, Merlin?” a voice drawls, and it would take more than four years for Merlin to forget the man it belongs to, more than four or forty or four million. “Then again, I suppose that’s how you operate, isn’t it?”

“Arthur,” Merlin breathes, faltering at the sound of his name, said as only Arthur has ever managed it, and he forces a smile on to his face, something bland and blasé and not revealing just how close to fracturing he is right now. “Hi,” he says, turning to face him, closer than he’s been in forever, and any words he might have thought to continue with are gone, gone without a trace.

Arthur looks well, that’s the first thing Merlin thinks. The years haven’t changed him, at least not on the outside, and the man that stares at him like he’s a ghost is almost indistinguishable from the one he knew before. His hair’s a little shorter, maybe, his suit jacket clinging to biceps that might be a little larger than Merlin remembers them being, but it’s definitely still Arthur, and Merlin doesn’t know how to breathe anymore.

The next thing he notices is that Arthur looks both angry and out of breath, his face red from exertion and fringe damp with sweat, not that any of that detracts from how perfect he is, and Merlin thought maybe spending the service staring his fill would have been enough, but it isn’t. He’s still staring, even as Arthur crowds in close, forcing Merlin to step backwards until he hits one of the sofas in the lobby, collapsing onto it like a marionette with severed strings.

“Is that it?” Arthur demands, but somewhere behind the proud set of his shoulders there’s uncertainty, just a little, mirrored by the tiny tremor in his voice. “Five years, and that’s all I get? Hi?”

“Four years,” Merlin corrects, like that makes it better, looking away from him because he knows it doesn’t, and his brain carries it on for him, four years, three months and nine days, but this time there’s another voice that joins in.

“Yes, Merlin, I know how long it’s been,” Arthur says, as Merlin stares back at him with wide eyes. “I’m not exactly going to forget the day my best friend abandoned my baby and disappeared from the face of the earth, am I?”

Merlin doesn’t answer, doesn’t argue, because Arthur just called Yasmin his, can’t know yet, can’t have broken up with Gwen the way he would have if he had learnt of her betrayal, and Merlin can’t destroy that now any more than he could before. He can’t defend his leaving without saying why, and the only other things he can possibly say are that he sent Arthur a message saying where Yasmin was and that he knows his mum has told them all Merlin is okay, that she still sends them all Christmas cards signed with Merlin’s name as well as her own, but neither of those make for any kind of defence either.

Arthur waits for him to speak, waits so long Merlin almost does, summoning up and discarding what seems like a million sentences, each worse than the one before, none of them able to do any good. Arthur waits, eventually slumping down on the sofa beside Merlin, breaking eye contact so abruptly Merlin feels a little bit like he’s been set free from one prison only to be locked away in another.

“Fine,” Arthur says, resigned. “You don’t have to say anything. Just-” he pauses, glancing at Merlin out of the corner of his eye, looking away again immediately when he realises that Merlin is looking right back at him. “Come to the reception, at least. After all the trouble Morgana went to in order to get you here, I think you owe her that much.”

Merlin continues staring, and however much either of them has changed since Merlin left, this hasn’t. He still loves Arthur, completely and utterly and so very hopelessly. He has always known it, never even imagined that Arthur could love him back, but that doesn’t change the fact that Merlin loves him.

“I can’t, Arthur,” he says eventually, certain that Arthur can see his every emotion on his face and hear it in his voice. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”

He expects an argument, that Arthur will demand to know why Merlin is in such a hurry to get out of here and why he left in the first place, or that he’ll decide that since asking has failed he’s going to start ordering. Arguing is how he and always Arthur used to work, after all, at each others’ throats so often that it just became part of who they were around each other, the squabbling good natured except for when it wasn’t, their every conversation so full of bickering and ridiculous name calling that the whole world knew not to take it to heart.

Merlin is braced for an argument, one-sided though it will be when he won’t allow himself to fight back, but what he gets is something he could never have foreseen.

“Please, Merlin,” Arthur says, reaching out and taking Merlin’s hand, the contact as shocking as his words, as his eyes boring into Merlin’s. “You were my best friend once, Merlin. If you won’t do it because it’s Morgana’s wedding and she’ll kill you if don’t then, please, do it for me?”

If the words out of his mouth had been anything else, Merlin thinks he could have refused again, could have stood up and walked away, could have saved himself all the pain he knows he’s about to feel, but this...  Arthur has never asked him for anything the way he’s asking for this, has barely ever even asked him for anything, and the way he says it, please, like the word is foreign to him but he’ll say it for Merlin, will give him the power by offering him the ability to refuse, and Merlin wishes he could.

“Fine,” Merlin says, surrendering just as hopelessly as he loves. “You win, Arthur.”

“I always do,” Arthur says, smug again, but his hand squeezes once around Merlin’s before letting go.

* * *

They take Gwaine’s car, and Arthur, terrible passenger that he is, spends the entire journey bitching about everything from the lack of legroom to the slightly peculiar smell no amount of airing has ever managed to get rid of, the noise the engine makes and the fact that the radio is only a bog-standard model rather than DAB. Merlin drives, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel whenever Arthur pauses for breath, uncomfortable with the silence but with no idea how to break it.

Eventually, Arthur runs out of things to complain about and finally notices just how one-sided his conversation has been. “Haven’t you got anything to say, Merlin?” he demands loudly. “The way I remember it, you never shut up even when I wanted you to.”

“Yeah, well, things change,” Merlin answers succinctly, though seeing Arthur was all it took to realise that, actually, some things don’t.

“Clearly,” Arthur agrees, an arrogant distance in his voice, the way Merlin remembers him getting whenever a conversation was too emotional for his liking, whenever anything that might have suggested he was a human being reared its ugly head.

They continue driving, their quiet broken only for Arthur to provide the occasional direction, more or less unnecessary; Merlin knows the building Morgana has chosen for her wedding reception, remembers driving past it on the way from Camelot to his mother’s, each time trying to make it past without staring, each time failing. It’s a sixteenth century place, he thinks, practically a castle, built on the site of what was a monastery before Henry VIII got his hands on it, the chap he gave it to replacing purpose and practicality with extravagance, turrets and towers and a goddamn moat, of all things.

Even so, it’s sort of beautiful, Merlin thinks, as they make their way slowly up the narrow, hedge-lined driveway and across a lowered drawbridge, parking Gwaine’s car in the inner courtyard alongside all the others and trying to pretend it’s not completely out of place there, a ‘95 plate Toyota amongst all the Mercs and BMs, interspersed with the odd Jag or Rolls or Bentley, almost all of them either brand new or old enough that a museum would pay more money than Merlin will ever have in his life just to rent it for a bit.

Merlin is already out of the car and ready to lock the door (manually, because if Gwaine ever had the central locking key he lost it long ago) when he realises Arthur still hasn’t moved from his seat, staring at the wall in front of him like he’s waiting for some kind of message to reveal itself.

“Come on, prat,” Merlin calls, before he can think better of it, before he can remind himself just how unhealthy folding himself back into bad habits will end up being; Arthur startles, maybe at the name itself or just at the reminder that Merlin is there, that he’s not alone, but either way he looks up, slowly unfolding himself from the passenger seat and stretching high, his spine clicking as he does so.

“Keep your knickers on, Merlin,” he answers, that emphasis again, the one that’s always hit Merlin right where he lives, right where it hurts the most.

“You’re the one who wanted us to come here,” Merlin retorts, wishing he was really as unaffected as he manages to sound, but at least sounding it is better than not. “I figured you’d want us to go inside at some point.”

“God, Merlin, anyone would think you didn’t want to spend time with me anymore.”

Merlin falters, not sure if Arthur wanted that to sound like a joke or not, but either way it doesn’t, it really doesn’t, and Merlin’s stomach floods with guilt. “Arthur, it’s-”

“Or,” Arthur continues, speaking over Merlin like he’s not there, and he sounds just as bitter, this time for no reason Merlin can see; Arthur’s first unfunny joke should sound like this, maybe, because there was a time, not even a short one, where he and Merlin spent pretty much every second of the day in each others’ company and the sudden absence of that had to have been as jarring for Arthur as it was for Merlin, even if Arthur had other people to fill his time with. This, though, the snide words that sound... Merlin doesn’t know what they sound, but if he was to abandon all logic and hazard a guess he’d say it was jealousy. “Maybe you’re just worried about what Morgana’s doing to your new friend?”

“Gwaine’s a big boy,” Merlin answers distractedly, still trying to figure out what it is that has Arthur feeling strongly enough that he can’t keep it from his voice. “He can look after himself.”

“And how long have you known him?”

Merlin shrugs, locking the car and then following Arthur as he heads for the door to the castle. “A while, I guess. He hit on me in a pub, I helped him out in a bar fight, and somehow we ended up living together. You’ll have to ask him if you want more detail than that, because I’ve got no idea at all why I put up with him.”

He half hopes Arthur will laugh at that, but he doesn’t, just opens the door and walks on in, his shoulders stiff, head held high, and within seconds Merlin has lost sight of him through the crowd of Morgana and Leon’s guests.

* * *

“Mummy?” Yasmin asks, trying to keep her voice down – Grandpa Pendragon said she had to be on her best behaviour today, had to act like the grown-up girl she was, and that meant lots of boring things like saying please and thank you and not shouting or shuffling or running around, even when the old man in the dress was doing his silly talking bits and everyone else had to be quiet or else.

Her mummy doesn’t answer, though, so Yasmin reaches out and tugs on her skirt, speaking a little louder this time. “Mummy, who is the man with my daddy?”

At that, Mummy looks at her, making those little lines between her eyes that show she doesn’t know what Yasmin is talking about, so Yasmin points at the door, where a man is walking through the doors behind her daddy, his face even more line-y than Yasmin’s mummy’s is.

Mummy looks, and then she smiles, showing all her teeth, and offers Yasmin her hand. “That’s Merlin, love. A long time ago, he and your daddy used to be best friends.”

“Merlin,” Yasmin sounds out, wondering what it looks like. It's not a name she's heard before, but it sounds like a good word, one she’ll write down as soon as she’s allowed to wear something other than the pretty, pretty dress Aunty Morgana gave her and make a mess again. “M-E-R-L-I-N.”

Her mummy looks at her, the same way she always does when Yasmin spells out words or tells her about the new things she’s learnt at nursery or says that she doesn't like the book they've given her to read and can't she please ask the teachers to give her a more interesting one with bigger words? It's a little bit like she doesn’t know who Yasmin is, or maybe doesn’t know who she is going to be, but Yasmin’s used to it by now, so she just smiles until Mummy does as well, even if Mummy’s smile is a little bit funny.

“I want to say hello to him,” Yasmin says, folding her arms like Aunty Morgana does when she wants something. “Can we, please, Mummy?” she adds, because even Aunty Morgana tells her to say please when she asks for something, even if she doesn’t always do that.

Mummy smiles, this time properly, and plays with the silly ribbon Yasmin has in her hair for a minute. “That’s a good idea, love. I’m sure he’d like that.”

Yasmin runs for three steps, then sees Grandpa Pendragon looking at her, and decides maybe she should walk instead.

* * *

“Hello, Merlin,” Gwen says, her daughter tucked into her side. “It’s been quite a while.”

Merlin shrugs, feeling more than a little uncomfortable; Gwen has to know why he left, whether because she figured it out for herself or because Lancelot told her, and she has to know Merlin has no idea what to say to her. “Yeah,” he manages eventually, so impossibly awkward. “I guess it has.”

They stand there silently for far too long, and Merlin wonders if she’s regretting her decision to approach him just as much as he is, wonders if there’s any way he can excuse himself to start a slightly less sparse conversation with someone else, because surely no conversation could ever be as difficult for him as this one is.

And then, before Merlin can make his excuses and run for freedom, Yasmin steps away from Gwen, holding her right hand up to Merlin. He takes it, equal parts surprised and confused, then has to smile as she shakes his hand and offers an introduction so polite Merlin knows it can only have come from Uther, each word perfectly enunciated and spoken with a smile. “Hello, Merlin. I am Yasmin Pendragon and this is my mummy. We are very happy that you are here.”

Merlin glances at Gwen to see a smile on her face to match his own, and she nods at him, as clear an instruction to reply as ever he’s seen. “Hello, Yasmin,” he says, looking down into eyes that are just as much like Lancelot’s as the last time Merlin saw them, even as they’re set alongside Gwen’s nose and Gwen’s smile, Gwen’s curls only briefly reduced into something almost orderly. “It’s very nice to see you again.”

She stares up at him for a long time, an assessment that Merlin doesn’t know if he’s going to pass or fail, doesn’t know why it matters when she’s only a four-year-old and he’ll be gone by tomorrow, just a tiny blip in her memory, the man who showed up once and was never there again. It’s still uncomfortable, though, and Merlin is a little relieved when she turns to her mother. “Mummy, I want cake now. Is it time yet?”

Gwen hesitates a second, and Yasmin’s eyes narrow, her arms folding, and everything from the words to the tone to the expression and posture is so very Arthur that Merlin doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Oh, Merlin,” Gwen says, her eyes wide, reaching for Merlin like she’s going for a hug. “Merlin, you have no idea how sorry I am, for everything.”

Merlin stands frozen as her arms close around him, her head turned to one side as she presses against his chest, and slowly, so slowly, Merlin’s own arms rise to encircle her, resting feather-light and uncertain on her back. He doesn’t say anything, because forgiveness would be insincere and anything else would just be unkind, and, anyway, when they both know that her choices have destroyed his life, what is there for him to say?

“I have decided,” Yasmin says, tugging on Merlin’s suit jacket with one hand and on Gwen’s dress with the other, waiting until they both look at her before continuing. “I would be happy with ice cream instead of cake, and I think Merlin should have some, too.”

Gwen looks at him helplessly, a fragile smile making its way across her face again, and Merlin should have known that the Pendragon tyranny was entirely nurture instead of nature. “I think you’re right, Yasmin,” he says, because he can’t argue with her aunt or her... well, whatever Arthur may be in this world Merlin can’t comprehend, so what chance does he stand when the attitude comes attached to a child? “Ice cream sounds like a great idea.”

* * *

It’s only a matter of time before Morgana sweeps her way over, looking as put-together as she ever has, regal and terrifying and painfully familiar.

“Merlin,” she says, flinging her arms around his neck with absolutely no regard for decorum or the fact that she’s wearing what has to be several thousand pounds of silk and sparkly rocks and has just clubbed him in the back of the head with her bouquet. “I’m so glad you made it.”

Because you gave me so much choice, Merlin thinks, but this is her day and he’d rather not be publicly eviscerated in front of a crowd of their friends and her terrifying relatives. “It’s good to see you,” he says instead, because it’s almost true; he missed Arthur the most, obviously, but for all that she can be viciously viper-tongued, Morgana is very definitely a close second.

“Of course it is,” Morgana answers, in the tone of a woman who believes herself to be stating the absolute obvious; even without looking at her Merlin knows she’s smirking at him. “I’m fantastic, and your life has been miserable and empty without me in it.”

“You’re fantastic, and my life has been miserable and empty without you in it,” Merlin parrots obediently, winning himself a glorious smile and freedom from the hug that is tight enough to make breathing a little tricky.

“Damn right it has,” she says, ignoring Gwen’s attempt to scold her for her language, not that Yasmin has managed to peal her attention away from her ice-cream long enough to notice anything the adults around her are saying. “That said, you’ll have to languish without me a little longer. I need to borrow Gwen for a minute.”

Gwen looks between them both, then glances at the little girl perched on the counter under the serving hatch, eating vanilla ice cream (and, God, the look she’d given Merlin when he suggested she might like something more interesting; he could practically hear the way Arthur used to mutter sacrilege, Merlin, his eyes narrowed into a mock-glare). “I don’t know, Morgana,” Gwen says quietly, biting her lip, and Merlin is flooded with the overwhelming urge to apologise, even though his wrong is years old and hers is far, far greater. “Can you ask Ellie or Mith instead?”

“No,” Morgana says, “I can’t. Besides, even if Merlin is stupid enough to repeat his mistakes, you know where to look.”

With that, she snakes a hand around Gwen’s wrist and whirls, skirts sweeping majestically behind her. Gwen casts a helpless glance over her shoulder, but Yasmin only beams at her and kicks her heels against the wall. “Go on, Mummy,” she says, as determined as any almost five-year-old. “Merlin will look after me.”

Oh God, Merlin thinks, as she looks at him with Gwen’s smile and Lancelot’s eyes and bloody Arthur’s attitude, hating Gwaine more than he ever has before. God.

* * *

“So,” Merlin says, a small eternity later, when he’s finally resigned himself to the complete lack of ethics required to do what he’s doing now, quizzing a four-year-old about whether or not her parents are still together. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself, Yasmin?”

“My name is Yasmin Olivia Pendragon,” she answers proudly. “I am four and my birthday is the 28th of November.” She’s quiet for a moment as she eats another spoonful of ice cream and looks encouragingly at Merlin. “Your turn,” she prompts imperiously, when he doesn’t immediately start speaking.

“Right,” Merlin says, hopping up to sit on the countertop beside her. “My name is Merlin Emrys. I’m twenty-eight, and my birthday is the 21st of January.” Then, because he can’t resist trying to direct her a little bit, adds, “I live with my friend Gwaine.”

Unfortunately, Yasmin doesn’t pick up on his suggestion (she’s four, Merlin reminds himself, and far too young to realise he’s trying to nose into her home life). “That’s a funny name as well,” she says. “Is he your boyfriend?”

“No,” Merlin answers, after spending a moment trying to figure out the seemingly non-existent connection between funny names and boyfriends. “He’s just my friend.”

“Why?”

This, Merlin thinks, is very much not the conversation he was hoping to have. “I don’t know,” he says. “He’s silly, and annoying, and- and his feet smell funny.”

Yasmin giggles, and Merlin sort of wonders if maybe today isn’t going to be entirely bad.

* * *

Uther can recall only two situations where he’s felt absolute panic. The first, almost thirty years ago, was when Vivienne told him she was pregnant and that there was almost no chance at all that it was her husband’s. The second time, some four years back, was when he woke at three in the morning to a phone ringing incessantly and the news that the man who was supposed to be caring for his granddaughter had disappeared beyond a trace.

Of course, Yasmin had been fine, her idiot minder having informed Arthur of exactly where she was before he did his vanishing act, but in the minute it took for Arthur to explain that he was only calling to complain Uther is pretty sure his heart didn’t beat once, medically impossible though that may be.

The moment he happens across his granddaughter once again in the care of Merlin Emrys is close to being a third, but the fact that she’s giggling is enough for Uther to remain more or less un-panicked. The desire to physically assault the twerp means that his emotional state definitely can’t be classed as calm, but he’s not panicking, and that’s definitely something.

“Mr Emrys,” he announces, feeling a little proud of the way just the sound of his voice is enough to make his children’s former friend cringe; since Uther won’t ruin Morgana’s wedding reception by resorting to physical violence, he’ll have to resort to causing sheer terror instead. “How nice to see you again.”

Merlin swallows, his flinch both visible and deeply satisfying. “Hello, Mr Pendragon,” he answers, a little bit of a wobble to it. “How’ve you been, sir?”

“Well, thank you,” Uther states, then decides he’s had quite enough of civil chit-chat. “It’s almost time to eat. I do hope you haven’t encouraged my granddaughter to ruin her appetite.”

“I-” Merlin’s mouth flaps open and closed like a spectacularly stupid goldfish.

Uther’s about to say something along those lines when Yasmin decides to pipe up, and whilst he’s ashamed to say his children have had more than one occasion to doubt his love for them, he is quite certain his granddaughter will never feel that way; when Yasmin speaks, Uther listens, even if it’s only childish nonsense.

“Mummy said we could have ice cream,” she says, chin out in defiance, and Uther wonders again at the miraculous power over people that Merlin Emrys seems have. His children have never stood for him disparaging Merlin, and it seems that only minutes in the idiot’s presence have had the same effect on Yasmin. “And I’m always hungry.”

“She takes after her father, then,” Merlin says, and there’s something in his voice that draws Uther’s attention, something in the way the boy says it that surprises Uther as he’s never managed to surprise him before. “I’m going to sit down, now, Yasmin,” he continues. “I’ll talk to you later, love.”

Well, Uther thinks. It seems Arthur was right.

* * *

Gwaine, the git, is already most of the way through the bottle of white wine on their table when Merlin joins him, despite knowing perfectly well that Merlin despises red, not to mention all the other people who are going to join them and might actually want a choice in what they drink.

“Wanker,” Merlin says, relishing the opportunity to swear freely after his brief but terrifying encounter with the father of the bride.

“Only if there’s no one willing to help out,” Gwaine answers with a grin. “Speaking of, are any of our table-mates likely to be worth trying to pull, or should I look further afield? The bridesmaids are all pretty fine, right?”

Merlin is half-tempted to tell him to try flirting with Gwen, if only because the last time he was around here there were three blokes willing to take care of anyone who tried to mess with her (not to mention the amount of damage Gwen herself is capable of) and he knows whatever has happened in Gwen’s romantic life Elyan will still defend her to the death. He can’t afford the bills on his own, though, so Merlin settles for name-calling instead. “You’re disgusting.”

“And we’re all quite content with the relationships we’re already in,” Elena adds, pulling out the chair next to Merlin but not yet sitting down. “Right, love?”

The dark-haired bridesmaid hovers at the seat on the other side of Elena, smiling as she gives Gwaine a cursory once-over. “Quite,” she answers. “And even if I was on the market, I’d like to believe I have slightly higher standards than this.”

Merlin laughs, ignoring Gwaine’s slightly shrill, “Hey!” as he stands up and gives Elena the hug she’s clearly been waiting for.

“I can’t believe Morgana didn’t tell us you were coming, the cow,” Elena gushes. “God, it’s been so long, and you just vanished. How have you been? Where have you been?”

“Let the man breathe, Ellie,” the other woman says; Merlin meets her gaze over Elena’s shoulder, sees the fond exasperation that only ever accompanies true love. “Hi, I’m Mithian,” she continues, holding out her hand for Merlin to shake when Elena finally releases him. “Am I to take it you are the famous Merlin?”

“I don’t know about famous,” Merlin answers, feeling more than a little awkward, “But otherwise, yeah. This git’s Gwaine, and I promise he’s not actually a creepy sexual predator, however much he might act like one.”

“Wow, Merlin,” Elyan says as he, Lance and Percival join them, all of them hauling Merlin into back-thumping hugs before they too sit down. “Remind me never to ask you for a character reference.”

* * *

By the time Arthur emerges from his hiding place in the kitchens, everyone has taken their seats, only his chair at the top table remaining glaringly empty, and Arthur tries to pretend he doesn’t notice everyone staring at him as he hurries towards it.

“Sorry,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to his sister’s cheek.

“Hiding, little brother?” she answers. “I thought you were braver than that.”

Arthur grimaces, still overly aware that they’re being watched, but even then it’s mostly just his daughter’s presence to his left that keeps him from saying something unpleasant enough that his sister will hurt him. “You’re very lucky, Yasmin,” he says, just loud enough for Morgana to catch it as their plates are brought out. “I’d love to be an only child.”

Morgana laughs, beautiful and clear, carrying far further than just their table; without looking, Arthur knows people are staring at him again. Part of him wants to see if Merlin’s one of them, part of him doesn’t want to know, and the remainder just wants to hide under the table and pretend none of this is happening.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Arthur,” Uther says, using the opportunity of leaning over to cut Yasmin’s food in order to add to the argument. “You’d be well and truly lost without your sister.”

Arthur harrumphs at him, rolling his eyes as he casts his gaze over the hall full of his friends and family, brought together by his sister’s meddling. At Merlin, gone so long and dragged back into Arthur’s life by Morgana’s inability to leave well enough alone.

At Merlin, who Morgana brought back to him.

* * *

“I suppose it’s pointless to ask you to dance?” Morgana says, sitting in Elena’s vacated chair, the slight jostle of her arm against his finally tearing Merlin away from what might be described as obsessive staring (that’s what Gwaine called it, anyway, but since Gwaine’s idea of affection involves cooking his one night stand breakfast before unceremoniously booting him or her out the door, Merlin’s not inclined to give his opinion any credit whatsoever).

“I still don’t dance, Morgana,” Merlin answers, looking back at her with no intention whatsoever of getting up; he stood when they moved the tables to the edge of the room, but since then he’s been firmly entrenched in his corner, safely out of the way and ignoring all his old friends’ attempts to get him to engage in anything other than the most innocuous of conversations (it only took them asking three times where he’s been for them to realise he’s not going to answer, not when he still intends on going back there as soon as he can).

“Four years is a long time, Merlin,” she says softly, her hand reaching out to cover his. “Long enough for a lot to have changed.”

Merlin glances unwillingly at the top table, to the chair Arthur hasn’t moved from since he sat down. “Some things don’t change,” he murmurs, their hands curled together, and even though Merlin knows she’s not strong enough to restrain him if he decides to pull himself free, the gesture alone is enough to keep him there.

“No,” Morgana agrees. “Some things never change.”

The sound Merlin makes is something close to a sob, hiccup-y and terrible. If he was with anyone other than Morgana he’d be embarrassed at how clearly on display his vulnerability is, but Morgana’s always been so good at knowing where best to attack that there’s no point in trying to hide from her. She knows his weaknesses better than he does, and if she decides to exploit them, there’s nothing at all Merlin can do to stop her.

Today seems to be a day for surprises, though, because Morgana decides to keep her talons to herself. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Merlin,” she says, still soft and so very sincere. “I know you think you had to leave, but-”

“Morgana,” Merlin interrupts, finding his voice again because he has to, because the only alternative is covering his ears and hoping that’ll be enough to make her shut up. “Please, Morgana, don’t.”

Slowly, so slowly, like she realises how close to bolting he is, Morgana stands up, pulling Merlin into a hug that is far more delicate than the one she gave him earlier.

“You don’t have to stay gone, Merlin,” she says, her hair pressing soft against his cheek as she speaks to him, loosening her hold as he pulls away but still continuing. “It’s time to come home, love.”

* * *

Oh, fuck, Merlin thinks, forcing his way through the crowd of guests until he gets to what may or may not be a fire door, but he honestly doesn’t give a shit about that right now. He needs to be outside and away from all this too much to care about whether or not his escape is going to set off a chorus of alarms and sprinklers and ruin Morgana and Leon’s day.

Fortunately, the alarms stay silent and the assorted guests get to remain dry as he barrels through the doors, and Merlin is free to dodge shrubbery and Keep off the grass signs until he finds a bench that’s out of sight of the building.

Merlin slumps onto it, putting his head between his knees and trying to remember how to breathe. His lungs are aching and his head spinning and fucking hell, Arthur and Morgana and little Yasmin, all the secrets and lies and he just wants to run away and never come back again.

It’s time to come home, she said, like that’s an easy thing for him to do, like it’s not killing him to be here, surrounded by the ghosts of his past and the people he loves more than anyone else on this earth.

If he thought he could have come back, he would have done so years ago, would never have even left in the first place, but he can’t. He would have stayed here until he died, asking nothing more than to watch Arthur live a long and happy life with Gwen and Yasmin and however many more kids they decide to fill their life with, and he wouldn’t have been happy with that, not really, but he would have been content. He would never have asked for more.

But to come back here, to live alongside an Arthur whose happy life is either already broken or will be as soon as Merlin allows himself to settle back in and forget the secrets he ought to be keeping... To come back and stay back can never be.

He can’t go home, because Morgana knows where he lives and even if it’s served her twisted purpose to keep it a secret since she sent the invitation to Gwaine, it probably won’t serve it any longer. Morgana knows, and she’ll tell anyone who asks her, which means Merlin needs to move again, only this time he’s unlikely to find someone like Gwaine to help him start over and Merlin has no idea how he’s supposed to keep doing this.

He can’t keep running from people he wants only to run to, but until he stops caring, he hasn’t got any other choice.

He’ll sit out here until his lungs are working again, then he’ll go back in and apologise to Morgana and Leon for not being able to stick around. After that, he’s going to go back to the hotel and lock fucking Gwaine out of the room, leave the git to find somewhere else to spend the night, before getting a train to his mother’s in the morning and having Will help him figure out where to go next.

“Leaving so soon, Merlin?” Arthur drawls, his voice jerking Merlin from his hiding place and his desperate attempts to breathe again. “And here I thought Morgana might have convinced you to stay.”

Merlin takes a deep breath, aching in every inch of his body at what he’s about to do. “Even Morgana’s not that good, Arthur.”

“I see,” Arthur says. “In that case, maybe you’ll do me the favour of telling me why you’re so determined to vanish from the face of the earth. Just for old time’s sake, you know.”

“That’s not half the argument you think it is,” Merlin answers. “I’ve never explained anything to you in the past, so I’m not exactly going to start now.”

Arthur’s hand rakes through his hair again and again, and years ago Merlin would have teased him for it, laughing about how Arthur would be bald before he turned thirty, but now isn’t the time. It’s never going to be the time for it, because that world ended the day Gwen and Lance decided to betray Arthur and Merlin’s been living in his own personal dystopia ever since then.

“Don’t fuck with me, Merlin,” Arthur snaps. “I’m not in the mood for it, and if you’ve got any sense whatsoever, you won’t even try. Why did you go?”

Merlin shakes his head, helplessly, hopelessly silent.

“Why?”

This time, Arthur isn’t content with silence, clamping a hand around each of Merlin’s upper arms and hauling him to his feet, shaking him roughly as he more or less yells in Merlin’s face.

“Answer the fucking question, Merlin. Why did you go?”

“Because I fucking well had to, Arthur,” Merlin yells back, yanking his arms up and planting his hands on Arthur’s chest, shoving him backwards, and this much is true even if everything that’s going to follow it is more of a lie than anything he’s ever told in the past. “Because I’d fucking well had enough of you making demands all the time, treating me like this! I’m not your property, Arthur. I have a life outside of you, you know. I was never going to spend my whole life letting you shove me around.”

For a second, Arthur is speechless. It really is only for a second, maybe two or three, but it’s more than Merlin has ever managed to achieve in his lifetime, and of all his accomplishments it’s the one that makes Merlin feel the worst. “Merlin, I- You know I never meant to-”

“No,” Merlin answers, because the damage he’s done so far still isn’t enough. “I don’t know, Arthur. I’ve never fucking known! I spent years feeling like shit because of you, and now you think I’m just going to roll over because you tell me to?”

“Merlin-”

“And you still don’t fucking get it, do you? I left because being around you every day was going to destroy me! Getting away was the only way I could survive, and I’m a hell of a lot happier now than I would have been if I’d stayed!”

Arthur sucks in a gasp, recoiling like Merlin’s just stabbed him, and Merlin feels like dirt – less than dirt, even. He’s the lowest of the low, entirely beyond forgiveness or redemption, but the way Arthur sat beside Yasmin as they ate, giving her his absolute, undivided attention; the way Lancelot stared at Merlin with heartbreak in his eyes; the knowledge that whatever Morgana thinks has changed, Arthur’s world is still unbroken.

“Fuck you, Merlin,” Arthur says, shoving Merlin back. “Fuck you.”

He turns his back, storming away without so much as a glance over his shoulder, and even if that’s what Merlin wanted, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t hate himself.

* * *

Gwaine’s always liked a good party, particularly when it comes with an all-expenses-paid trip and as much alcohol as he can drink. Sure, this one maybe isn’t working out as well as it could have done, what with the way Merlin’s done nothing but glare at him since they got here, but it’s still a party, the drink is still free, and when Merlin storms from the room after talking to the bride, there’s someone else willing to go after him.

There seem to be a lot of someones, actually, which is something of a surprise. Gwaine has always figured Merlin didn’t have too many friends, the same way Gwaine didn’t even if it wasn’t for the same reason. Gwaine’s problem is that he lets everyone get way too close, tending only to realise he’d rather be friends after he’s shagged them, while Merlin’s is that he doesn’t let anyone close, but the end result is the same: they both have plenty of acquaintances, people they know to smile at and ask after the wife or kids or whatever, but the list of actual friends isn’t all that long.

Or so he’d thought, anyway, and realising that their lives are not at all comparable is disturbing in more ways than one.

And he still doesn’t know why Merlin left, though if he had to bet on it, his money’s on something to do with the blond who seems to split his time equally between staring at Merlin, glaring at Gwaine, and doting on the flower girl from the ceremony.

The glarer is not Gwaine’s priority right now, though, and nor is yelling at Merlin about how he’s spent the last four years hiding from people who clearly adore him and how he’d better not do the same fucking thing to Gwaine. Actually, if he’s really lucky, Merlin and Mr Grumpy will spend their time outside doing whatever it is people who haven’t seen each other in years do in a secluded castle garden before heading back to the blond’s house, leaving Gwaine free to take whoever the heck he wants back to the ridiculously expensive hotel room.

And at the moment, whoever the heck Gwaine wants is tall, seriously well-muscled, and interested enough for Gwaine to put the effort in, which, after his miserable failure with the bridesmaids, is really quite reassuring.

“So, you and Merlin,” Percival says, falling just short of being a throw-away question, but Gwaine is perfectly happy to take that as a compliment. “Have you known him long?”

Gwaine shrugs, stepping his way just a little bit closer. “Few years, yeah,” he answers. “Not too long after he moved away from here, I guess. He needed a place to stay; I needed help to pay the rent. Match made in heaven, right?”

“And you never...?”

“He was still way too into whoever he was seeing back here when we met,” Gwaine says, pretty sure he knows who that is, but if he can get confirmation without having to ask Merlin himself, that’d be far less awkward. “He still is, actually, but even if he wasn’t it would’ve been a little too awkward once he moved in.”

Percival frowns, looking at Gwaine like he thinks he’s a just a little bit mad (which he is, no question about it, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong). “Merlin wasn’t seeing anyone here.”

“Yeah, he was.”

The frown grows, and on a man of Percival’s size it’s actually just a tad intimidating. “Merlin couldn’t keep a secret to save his life,” he says. “If he was seeing someone, we’d have known about it.”

“This is the man who disappeared on you all for years,” Gwaine points out. “What makes you think he’d tell you jack?”

Clearly, that wasn’t a great thing to say – Percival’s frown is less confused than it is angry, now, which really isn’t what Gwaine was hoping for tonight. Fortunately, though, the glaring blond has just walked back into the building, and if anyone knows the truth of Merlin’s prior romantic entanglements, it’s going to be him.

“Bet you he was,” Gwaine says, grinning. “And I know just the man to settle it.”

Percival looks back at him, a little bit of a smirk appearing on his face. “You’re on,” he says. “I better get something good from this, though.”

“Oh, you will,” Gwaine agrees, putting a hand on Percival’s arm, momentarily losing his train of thought as he feels the flex of really rather impressive muscles. “Oi, Blondie,” he calls, slightly too loud, not that he massively cares all that much: he’s in there with Percival, regardless of whether or not Merlin’s former beau admits to their relationship. “Settle a disagreement for us, would you?”

Blondie looks over at them, apparently familiar enough with the nickname to know it’s him Gwaine’s talking to. His eyes narrow as he takes in the two of them, he gives Gwaine a look so cold it makes all his earlier glares seem friendly as anything, and as the bloke barges his way through the crowd of guests, Gwaine considers the possibility that he might have made a mistake.

Of course, it takes a fist pounding into his face for him to realise why.

* * *

Despite the fact that Gwaine returned to their hotel far later than Merlin did (and, as per usual, considerably less sober), when Merlin is hauled reluctantly into wakefulness Gwaine is already up and about, parading around the room in just a towel, wet hair hanging across his face, and never mind that this is Merlin’s room and he shouldn’t be in here anyway.

“Morning, sunshine,” the git says, swapping the towel for a battered pair of jeans, his voice far too chipper for this hour in the morning.

Merlin glares at his back, and when that fails to do any damage, rolls onto his stomach and places a pillow over his head, hoping against hope that the next time he wakes up, it can be yesterday again, only this time Merlin won’t be such a twat.

Such a glorious dream is not to be, though; barely seconds later, Gwaine launches himself at the bed, making it rock like a ship at sea and squashing Merlin’s legs in the process. “Don’t be like that, Merls,” he says, apparently getting the memo that Merlin isn’t talking to him right now and choosing to ignore it entirely, or possibly just feed it to the shredder. “I thought you’d be happy about this.”

Merlin grimaces, glares some more, and then decides he’s maybe better off glaring at Gwaine than the mattress, though neither is really all that likely to react. “Happy?” he asks, shifting his hiding-pillow and twisting until he’s halfway facing Gwaine. “Did you not think that there’s maybe a reason I left here?”

“How the fuck would I know, Merlin?” Gwaine answers, dragging a hand through his hair, and it’s only as he hauls it away from his face that Merlin sees his whole face, the ring of blue and purple and black blooming around his left eye; maybe it’s the early hour or the hangover or the fact that it’s Gwaine’s bloody fault that Merlin is back in the life he ran away from, but Merlin thinks he probably deserves it, doesn’t think he cares enough to ask. “I didn’t even know there was a here for you to leave.”

“Yeah, well, there was,” Merlin says shortly, falling into an abrupt, angry silence.

Gwaine sighs, long and loud. “I’m not sorry,” he says, stubborn as anything. “I’ve known you more than four years now, and I haven’t asked you jack about who you used to be or what you were running from. You could have been a murderer, for all I knew, and I didn’t fucking ask you once, about anything. You’re the best mate I’ve ever had, and from the letter Morgana sent me this lot love you just as much as I do, so if you want to be mad at me for bringing you here then you can fucking well go ahead and be mad at me, because I’d do it again.”

Merlin doesn’t answer, doesn’t know what there is for him to say, because Gwaine thinks he’s right and won’t ever believe otherwise.

“I’ll leave you to think it over,” Gwaine says, rolling over and somehow ending up on his feet, then holding out a crumpled sheet of paper towards Merlin. “You should read this, though,” he says, then places it on Merlin’s chest when he refuses to take it. “Come on out when you’re ready to go.”

“I’m not staying,” Merlin tells him, but it gets just as little response as all his glares did.

* * *

Eventually, the ridiculousness of a grown man lying in bed sulking all day sinks in, and Merlin rolls over, sort of intending to get up, but the sound of paper crinkling stops him. Slowly, he pulls out the paper Gwaine left him from under his ribs, vaguely recognising the quality of it from the envelope the wedding invitation came in, and he unfolds it just as cautiously. It’s just a note, it’s not going to attack him – the most it’s going to do is give him a paper cut, and Merlin’s had plenty of them in his lifetime – but it’s never been physical damage that he is most afraid of.

The writing is instantly recognisable, mostly from the number of notes that made their way across Merlin’s desk back when he worked for Pendragon, always black ink on green post-its, swirling and sleek, everything from can you check these figures for me, please? to dinner, Saturday at seven, don’t even think about being late.

The ink is still black, even as the paper has changed, and Merlin feels like he’s intruding by reading it, even if Gwaine told him to.

He reads it anyway.

_Mr Greene,_

_I know we’ve never met, but it has recently come to my attention that you are living with someone who was once a dear friend of mine. He left us some four years ago, without a forwarding address, and it is only in this most dire of circumstances that I have finally managed to wrest his location from his mother._

_Please see to it that Merlin is suitably attired and present at my wedding. Accommodation has been booked in your name for both the night before and the week after, and all additional expenses will be taken care of._

_I realise this sounds a little peculiar, but I assure you I am neither insane nor dangerous. I know not how much Merlin has changed since we last saw him, but the man I remember would not go back on his decisions, even if they seem nonsensical to the rest of us. As such I cannot send this letter to him myself – I fear doing so would only cause him to run further – but I hope I might indulge upon a generous stranger to help me out, if not from the kindness of your heart then because I will be forever in your debt_

_We love him. We miss him._

_Yours,_

_Morgana Pendragon_

He reads it again, this time looking between the lines, not at Morgana’s perfectly composed words (and how well she clearly still knows him) but at the intent behind them, the time and effort that she must have put into finding the right thing to say. The words that would make a complete stranger sit up and take notice, do something that would go against a normal person’s better judgement (because how was Morgana supposed to know that better judgement isn’t something Gwaine has any of?). The time, and the effort, and the love.

“Fine,” he mutters, rolling to his feet and heading for world’s most magical shower, managing to emerge a little more human than he was before, maybe not ready to deal with whatever the plan for the day is, but perhaps able to fake it.

* * *

Gwaine has forgone drying his hair today, swapping yesterday’s finery for the same damaged jeans he wore when they arrived and a t-shirt that has definitely seen better days. “Ready?” he asks, pulling himself out of his slump against the wall, and shoving his feet into a pair of equally battered trainers.

“Will you tell me where we’re going today?” Merlin answers. “Bearing in mind I’m still massively pissed off with you and you can’t pay the rent without me, it’d probably be a good idea.”

Gwaine pauses in tying his shoelaces to shrug, then grins. “Going to have to. Park, Gwen said, but it’s not like I know where that is, mate,” he says. “Not the one who comes from ‘round here, am I?”

“You’re going to be the one who never leaves here if you don’t stop being such a wanker,” Merlin mutters, but he suddenly realises he’s trying not to grin, and that Gwaine has somehow already won.

* * *

They’re halfway to the park when Merlin asks what has actually been bugging him quite a lot, now that he’s starting to get over being quite so mad at him, now that he’s accepting how much he’s missed this life and how glad he is to be back here, even if it’s only temporarily and all he seems to be doing is getting into arguments.

“So what happened to your face?” he asks, because there’s some tiny chance Gwaine’s black eye is an accident but Merlin sort of thinks he’s probably not the only one who has been losing arguments lately.

“Tripped,” Gwaine answers, the short answer about as clear sign of dishonesty as Merlin could hope for. “Too much to drink,” he adds, as if that doesn’t make it even more unbelievable; Gwaine is drunk more often than he is sober, and Merlin can’t remember him ever injuring himself because of it in the past.

“And whose fist did you land on when you tripped?”

Gwaine sighs, huffy and over dramatic, then bumps his shoulder against Merlin’s and shakes his head. “Truth?” he asks, like he thinks there’s some weird chance that isn’t actually what Merlin’s after; when Merlin quirks an eyebrow at him, he sighs again and continues. “Okay, fine, I might have been trying to persuade Percival to come back to the hotel with me, and your ex didn’t take too kindly to it. Apparently he’s under the misapprehension that we’re together and I’m a filthy, cheating scumbag, when even a blind man could see you’re still way too gone on him to even notice anyone else.”

Merlin pauses to think this over, not realising he’s stopped until Gwaine, half a dozen steps ahead of him, turns around and huffs yet again; slowly, Merlin’s brain kicks back into action, his feet following suit not long after, and he finds himself asking something he’s pretty sure he already knows the answer to. “My ex?”

“Come on, Merlin,” Gwaine says, waiting until Merlin’s back alongside him before carrying on walking. “The pair of you couldn’t keep your eyes off each other yesterday. How thick do you think I am?”

“I really have no idea who you’re talking about,” Merlin answers, even though he knows who he was staring at the whole way through the wedding and the reception. But the idea that he and Arthur were ever together is utterly laughable, as is the possibility of Arthur trying to defend Merlin’s imagined honour after how ugly the fight they had yesterday was.

“Yeah, you do. Blond, about so tall, thinks he’s God’s gift to man and womankind… Ringing any bells here, Merlin?”

“Arthur?” he asks, definitely a question, because even though that’s clearly who Gwaine is hinting at it’s still utterly beyond comprehension. “Arthur and I have never been together.”

Gwaine scoffs, rolling his eyes in so exaggerated a fashion Merlin almost expects them to pop out of his head. “Why not?”

“Well, the main obstacle would have been his wife,” Merlin answers, surprised into telling the truth. “But after that you’ve got the fact that he’s really not interested.”

“Merlin, mate, he’s interested. My face attests to just how interested in you he is, and wives are so much less of an obstacle than you think they are.”

“And you wonder why people punch you…” Merlin says, but they’re there now and arguing with Gwaine’s lunacy is always more effort than it’s worth.

* * *

“I think your sister’s a witch”, Elena says, untangling her fingers from Mithian’s in order to poke Arthur on the shoulder when he ignores her, then gestures towards two figures approaching them from the other side of the children’s play area. “I mean, she has to be, right. How else would she have got him here?”

Arthur shrugs, barely glancing at the man Mithian now knows to be the legendary Merlin and Gwaine, with whom Merlin may or may not be sleeping. “Not sure you got the spelling right,” he mutters under his breath, earning himself a disapproving tut from Gwen even as most of the rest of them smother a smile.

“We all know you’re glad really,” Elena continues like he never spoke at all, ruffling his hair affectionately before allowing Mithian to reclaim her hand. “You pined something dreadful after he left.”

“I did not pine!”

His tone is utterly indignant, and petulant enough that Mithian finds herself reaching her free hand up to her face, using the pretence of sliding a lock of hair back behind her ear to cover the smile she can’t keep down. She didn’t know any of them in the Merlin days, having only started working at Pendragon after the melodrama of Merlin’s disappearance had died down, so she can’t comment, but Arthur’s reaction to seeing him now, and to being reminded of how he behaved back then, is enough to think the majority are probably right.

“You could have put a Christmas Tree Farm out of business, Arthur,” Elena continues. “That’s how much you were pining.”

At this, everyone gives up trying not to be amused, and Arthur’s shoulders stiffen further as they laugh at him, not cruel – these people, Mithian’s people (and how lucky she is to have found them, how lucky she is that the coffee Elena bought her in apology for the printer incident that ruined Mithian’s favourite blouse on her second day of work turned into the first of many dates, so many that she’s lost count, allowing her to be pulled into this world she never would have been a part of otherwise), are never cruel – but enough that Mithian feels the need to speak up.

“Ellie, love, you’re still pining over the Ponds nearly three years later,” she says, because whilst she can’t defend Arthur, not when she thinks he’s probably wrong, she can at least divert attention from him, and Elena won’t sulk for anywhere near as long as Arthur would, if she even sulks at all. “And they aren’t even real people, are they? I really don’t think you’re in any place to judge him.”

Elena pouts in largely feigned offence, only holding it for a moment before giggling, shuffling closer until she’s leaning her head against Mithian’s shoulder, mumbling something about stupid Clara and idiot writers, and as Merlin and Gwaine join them all on their mad swathe of picnic blankets, the question of whether or not Arthur pined is left behind.

* * *

By the time they get to the park, Merlin’s stomach is a tangled mess of knots.

He was unsettled yesterday, completely unbalanced by finding himself back in Camelot without any time to prepare for it, but that’s no excuse at all. He was an absolute bastard, not even a little bit in the right, and he knows he owes Arthur an apology.

If only he knew how to begin.

They’re all already there, smiling at Merlin as he and Gwaine join them: Elena and Mithian, curled into each other’s space; Yasmin, chattering away excitedly at her parents; Elyan and Percival squabbling over something most likely insignificant; Lancelot, supervising fondly like he fathered all of them instead of just the one.

Gwaine greets them all with excessive enthusiasm, launching himself into all the chatter and the bickering like he’s been a part of the group forever, no one saying anything about the bruise on his face, but then Merlin figures most of them witnessed its creation.

“You just gonna stand there watching, Merls?” Gwaine asks, grinning up at him from his newly found spot on the picnic blankets between Percival and Lancelot. “‘Cause it’s a bit creepy, you know?”

“I-” Merlin manages, drawn as ever towards Arthur, not realising he might as well be asking for permission until Arthur meets and holds his gaze. Only then does Merlin sit, folding himself onto the edge of the blanket beside Mithian, making a barricade of the only person who doesn’t know him well enough to really be angry at him.

“Morgana and Leon send their love,” Elena says, leaning across her girlfriend to offer Merlin a plastic cup of orange juice. “She says she’s sorry for what she said to you yesterday, and hopes you’ll still be here when she gets back on Saturday.”

Merlin smiles uncertainly, not entirely sure how welcome he is with the rest of them, but no one is yelling at him to leave so maybe it’s okay to stay.

For today, at least. He’ll leave tomorrow.

* * *

There are two things in his life that Lancelot can say he is unquestionably proud of.

The first, his daughter, is both impossibly wonderful and yet impossibly complicated; as perfect as Yasmin is, Lancelot isn’t remotely proud of the circumstances that led to her conception, or of the lies he told about it.

He loves Gwen, unquestioningly and eternally, but he knows if they had the chance to start over, they would both have liked to do things differently, properly. They would have waited until the divorce papers were signed and Gwen and Arthur were separated for real, rather than just in the middle of a fight that seemed beyond fixing. He’d have given her time to be absolutely certain, wouldn’t have allowed them to get so caught up in a moment built of desperation and sorrow and the desire for comfort and acceptance that they trampled over so many promises that should have been unbreakable.

Failing that, he wouldn’t have let her believe he was asleep when Arthur called her in the morning. He would have asked her to stay with him rather than going back to her husband and the marriage none of them were happy with. He wouldn’t have told her that it was okay – though he wanted it to be – or that he understood – though he did. He would have been braver, bolder, more honest.

He’d have kept Merlin from leaving, if he could have.

If his pride over his daughter is complicated, his pride in his ability to cook is anything but, and now that Merlin and Gwaine have joined them, Lancelot doesn’t hesitate in bringing out boxes of quiches and pasties and pies, sandwiches and cakes. He’s not the only one contributing to their picnic, but it’s his food that everyone reaches for first, and when Elyan raises his plastic beaker of orange squash and makes a toast _to good friends and better food_ , he’s the one they all smile at.

“Lancelot is the best cook in the world,” he hears Yasmin tell Arthur, and even though Lancelot knows she’s only saying it because she wants yet another helping of cake, he can’t help but answer her broad smile with one of his own.

“Don’t you dare, Lance,” Gwen says, her hand slapping down on top of his as he goes to open the cake tin to give Yasmin the last slice of chocolate cake. He stops immediately, letting his hand slide from the tin, their fingers curling together, and even though everything is out in the open now, has been for more than a year and he and Gwen have been slowly working towards being a couple for not much less time, being able to hold her hand still makes Lancelot’s heart pound.

“You’ve had quite enough, missy,” Gwen continues, offering Lance a tiny, subtle smile before turning her frown towards their daughter.

Yasmin looks between the two of them, her expression a little confused, like she can’t decide whether arguing reasonably or having a tantrum is more likely to get her what she wants. Gwen’s never given in to tantrums, though, and it seems Yasmin is smart enough to know that when her mother says no, she means no; realising that neither Gwen nor Lancelot is going to let her have her way, Yasmin does what she always does.

“Daaaaaad,” she says, turning wide, not quite teary eyes on Arthur.

Arthur doesn’t even both to look at Gwen for permission, apparently all too aware of the consequences of questioning her decisions. “Maybe you’d better listen to your mum this time,” he says, smiling as he ruffles her hair.

“Fine,” Yasmin huffs, pouting but not protesting. “But you’re all boring, and I want to play a game instead.”

This time, Arthur does look towards Gwen for her opinion, then, when Gwen smiles and tilts her head permissively, looks at the rest of them. No one has any objections to make, though Gwaine does cast a mournful glance at the remains of the picnic, and Merlin still looks pretty confused by nothing more than the fact that he's there.

"Okay," Arthur says, attention back on Yasmin again. "What do you want to play?"

Yasmin beams, practically leaping to her feet, twisting slightly on the spot so that her skirt swishes around her. "Hide-and-seek," she chirps, already decided, and her expression suggests great woe will befall anyone who dares to disagree. "Lancelot and I will count first."

“Will you, now?” Gwen replies, but there's something of a smile on her face as she stands up, brushing non-existent crumbs from her skirt with one hand, the other still clasped in Lancelot’s. “To one hundred, then, and no peeking,” she says, tugging lightly on their joined hands until Lancelot also stands and she has to tilt her chin upwards to meet his gaze.

“If that cake isn't still there when I get back, you're sleeping on the sofa, love,” she tells him, and Lancelot can do nothing but smile at her.

* * *

Merlin isn’t running this time, honest. He just needs air, space, a moment alone to acknowledge the fact that no, Arthur and Gwen are decidedly not still together.

So when Yasmin puts her hands over her eyes and Lance mimics her obediently, the two of them counting slowly, Merlin doesn’t waste a second in legging it as fast as he can, keeping going until he reaches the play area, well and truly out of sight of the group. It’s not like any of them have followed him, clearly just deciding Merlin’s getting way too into the game, so he’s free to sit on one of the few un-vandalised swings in the play area, walking himself back and forwards across the sand, feet never leaving the ground.

It’s stupid, because Merlin knew this was a possibility. They’re not living in the eighteen hundreds, and nowadays half the people who say ‘til death us do part do so with the awareness that it’s a long way from being unbreakable, but Merlin knows Arthur isn’t one of them. When Arthur married Gwen, he intended to be with her right up until the moment one of them was put in the ground, and Merlin thought learning Gwen wasn’t on the same page would ruin Arthur’s life.

Clearly, he thought wrong, because it looks like Arthur has survived the breakdown of his marriage just fine.

Merlin stops moving, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, and on the long list of things he regrets doing, he never really thought leaving would be one of them. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do, but it was the closest thing to it he could consider doing at the time, the only way he could see to spare Arthur the pain of learning of Gwen’s betrayal, and... He left, threw away the life he loved more than anything, and then when Morgana brought him back he was unforgivably awful to Arthur, all in the interest of keeping a secret that was already out.

“Merlin?” Arthur’s voice is tentative, ridiculously so, because up until this moment Merlin didn’t even realise tentative was within Arthur’s range of emotion. “Are you- Is everything okay?”

Merlin peels his hands away from his hair and straightens up, twisting on the swing so that he can watch Arthur as he pauses at the edge of the sand like he’s waiting for Merlin’s permission to approach.

“Yeah,” Merlin says, not managing to dredge up a smile as Arthur advances slowly, pausing again before balancing on the very edge of the swing beside Merlin’s. He frowns, opening his mouth to say something, and Merlin realises he has to get there before Arthur can start shouting, otherwise he’ll never say anything at all.

“Arthur, about yesterday,” he starts, at almost the exact second that Arthur says, “I’m sorry.”

Momentarily stunned, Merlin forgets that he was planning on making the apology in this situation, and Arthur takes his silence as permission to continue.

“You were right,” Arthur says, only stunning Merlin further; he’s heard Arthur apologise before, and occasionally known him to concede that other people might not be wrong, but never both at once and definitely never without reason.

“I wasn’t,” Merlin answers. “I was a jerk.”

“Maybe,” Arthur agrees, a half-smile making a brief appearance on his face. “But I deserved it. I took it for granted that you’d always be there, regardless of how much our lives changed or whatever stupid things I did. I made assumptions, without ever considering what you wanted, and I never told you how important it was that you were in my life.”

Merlin shakes his head, walking the swing forwards and back again, if only so he can stop making eye contact. “Don’t, Arthur,” he says. “I’ve never felt like that. You’re my best friend, you prat, and I’d’ve happily stayed here forever, if...”

There’s so many ways that sentence can end – if Gwen hadn’t slept with Lancelot, if I hadn’t found out about them, if I didn’t love you so much that I couldn’t bear keeping it a secret – but none of them are things Merlin really wants to say.

“Yeah,” Arthur says, like he can see everything Merlin’s thinking clearly enough to agree with it. “If.”

It’s so final, as though he thinks that’s all that needs saying, and Merlin doesn’t know how to continue the conversation, even though he has so, so many apologies to make, for lying and for abandoning Yasmin with Lancelot and for making Arthur think he’s the one at fault in any of this.

“I owe you a thank you,” he says instead, his tone far lighter, “for punching Gwaine for me.”

“He told you about that?” Arthur asks, not quite meeting Merlin’s gaze, and there’s possibly a hint of pink to his cheeks.

“I wasn’t quite stupid enough to believe him when he said he tripped,” Merlin replies, gently bumping his elbow into Arthur’s side. “I’ve never had someone try to defend my honour before,” he continues, grinning. “Completely unnecessary, of course, but it was very sweet of you anyway.”

“Who says I did it for you, idiot?” Arthur says, and Merlin revises possibly to definitely. It’s new, that; he’s never known Arthur to blush, certainly never because of something Merlin has said to him, and he’s not entirely sure what to think of it, or how to react.

“Prat,” he mutters, because it’s so much easier than trying to figure Arthur out.

“Idiot,” Arthur echoes softly, reaching out and wrapping his hand around the chain of Merlin’s swing. He pulls it closer, until their knees are bumping together, and the contact and the closeness aren’t new, not exactly, but it feels like they could be. It feels a little like this could be something else, and there’s something fluttering in Merlin’s stomach, halfway between excited and nervous; he raises his hand, resting it on the chain above Arthur’s, sliding down one link at a time, half expecting Arthur to pull away before they meet.

He doesn’t, though, keeping his hand there until they’re touching, overlapping, practically holding hands, and Arthur opens his mouth. “Merlin,” he says, just that, but he’s close enough to send shivers up Merlin’s spine.

“Yes, Arthur?” he answers, pushing the words past the dryness in his mouth.

“Merlin,” he says again. “Merlin, I-”

He’s close, so, so, so close, and yet Merlin finds himself leaning in further, his thumb running over Arthur’s knuckles, less than an inch between them now, and-

“We found you, Daddy!” Yasmin shouts, her footsteps tap-tapping towards the pair of them, and suddenly there’s distance between them again; they turn as one to see Yasmin racing across the park, Lancelot following at a much slower pace, his expression suggesting he feels just as awkward about interrupting them as Merlin does, now that whatever moment he and Arthur just had is broken.

“You found us,” Arthur answers, squeezing Merlin’s hand tightly as he stands up, his swing jangling and clacking against Merlin’s. “Does that mean it’s my turn to count?”

“It is!” she answers, already racing back towards Lancelot, and Arthur watches her go, eyes filled with the same fondness they’ve always held.

“I have to...” he says, trailing off, turning back to look at Merlin like he’s asking for permission.

“Go,” Merlin tells him, standing as well. “I’m right behind you.”

* * *

Merlin doesn’t leave on Sunday, either.

By midday on Monday, when Arthur calls and demands that Merlin meet him at his office for lunch, Merlin has more or less stopped trying to convince himself he’s not going to stay the week.

So he has lunch with Arthur, and it's both exactly the same and completely different from how it used to be. They still argue, but that's okay, that isn't anything new, and it's decent, good-natured, as far from the arguments of Saturday as anything can be. Arthur still says stupid, arrogant, infuriating things, and Merlin still finds himself reacting even though he knows that a reaction is exactly what Arthur is hoping for. They call each other every name under the sun, then make up a load extra just for good measure, and it feels to Merlin like it was only yesterday that they last did this.

And then he looks at Arthur, really, truly looks at him, and there's something new there. Not just the weight of the separation Merlin forced upon them, not just four years of experiences and adventures that Merlin wasn't there for yesterday. It's the warmth that was there yesterday, the moment Merlin told himself he'd imagined as soon as it was broken, and it's beautiful and confusing and…

God, Merlin doesn't know what it is, only that Arthur has never looked at him like this before, and it takes his breath away.

"Come for dinner,” Arthur says, when all the tables around them have been cleared and they finally have to concede that Arthur's lunch break is well and truly over. “Hell, come stay with me instead of at the hotel. That way you won't have to worry about what Gwaine might be up to every time you open the door.”

Even though he's not entirely sure whether or not Arthur really means it as an invitation, the idea that it might be thrills and terrifies Merlin in equal measures, so much so that he can't decide if it's regret or relief he's feeling as he answers. “Elena invited Gwaine and I over this evening,” he says, and if he can't figure out what he's feeling then he doesn't stand a chance at guessing what Arthur thinks about his refusal.

"Oh,” Arthur says, and for a moment Merlin thinks he might just leave it at that, but he doesn't. “Tomorrow, then?”

“We’re at Elyan’s tomorrow,” Merlin tells him, and then continues with the rest of his plans for the week, the invitations Gwaine accepted for them both before Merlin even knew this one from Arthur might be an option. “Gwen and I guess Lance beat you to Wednesday, and Perce has called dibs on Thursday, though given how much Gwaine was flirting with him at the picnic I highly doubt he'd notice if I wasn't there.”

He pauses, dropping his eyes for a moment before forcing himself to meet Arthur's gaze, sparing a second to tell his pounding heart to stop being so silly. “I haven't got plans for Friday, though.”

“Friday, then,” Arthur says, and for a long, long time they do nothing but stare at each other, the same terrifically intense stare they shared yesterday on the swings, and then Arthur's phone bleeps at him. They both glance down at it, and even though the screen is the wrong way up for him, Merlin reads a very terse message from Uther, questioning whether Arthur believes he ought to be an exception to the ruling about permitted lunch breaks being no longer that sixty minutes.

“Friday.”

* * *

 

Elena cooks them spaghetti, slapdash and messy but somehow still wonderful, and when they're done eating Mithian ushers the three of them into the living room while she goes to do the washing up, a laugh thrown back over her shoulder as she announces that Elena _can't be trusted with anything breakable and you know it, love, so why don't you entertain the boys and I'll stick to doing all the hard work._

“She loves it, really,” Elena says, her voice not much more than a whisper as she curls herself into the solitary armchair in the room, leaving Merlin and Gwaine the sofa to share. “I always put things back in the wrong place, anyway, and she's a total dictator about even the tiniest bit of mess being left on the plates.”

Merlin smiles, and stops wondering how Elena’s flat manages to be so much cleaner than he remembers it being. “She seems nice,” he says softly, happy that his friend has found someone to help her keep her scatterbrained self together.

“She's perfect,” Elena answers, just as softly, then launches into a long, convoluted exposition of Mithian’s many graces when Gwaine has the bad manners to snort sceptically at this.

 

* * *

 

Dinner with Elyan is fish and chips, during which Elyan catches Merlin up on everything he never should have missed, a brutal efficiency to his stories that Merlin finds somewhat refreshing after Elena’s non-linear ramblings. From him, Merlin learns of Yasmin’s first sentence, Percival's broken leg after a rock-climbing fall, the day Leon finally rustled up enough guts to ask Morgana out. He hears about Gwen and Arthur's divorce (fairly amicable, Elyan says, but then Merlin's seen enough to know that and even if he hadn't he can't imagine Gwen or Arthur letting something so trifling as their separation get in the way of what's best for Yasmin), about Morgana’s break from the Pendragon family business and the subsequent truce she and Uther come to.

* * *

 

What Elyan doesn't touch upon is Merlin's departure or its consequences, but then he has to leave something for his sister and her new boyfriend to talk about; Gwen asks Merlin to meet her at the school gates on Wednesday, then spends the twenty minutes they wait for Yasmin to say goodbye to her friends and go back into the building three times to collect things she's forgotten (her jumper, her book bag, and the picture she just has to give Merlin right this second) telling Merlin just how awful it's been with him gone.

“Arthur missed you so much,” she says, her arm tucked into his as she stands close and talks quietly enough that none of the other mums and dads can overhear her. “We all did, of course, but Arthur… I don't think anyone realised how much he needed you in his life until you weren't there anymore. He spent so many hours wondering why you'd left, and the number of times he tried to get your mum to tell him where you were… I think he'd have got the police involved, if it wasn't for the fact that she and Will swore blind that you were okay, that you left because you wanted to.”

“I'm sorry,” Merlin says, “Gwen, I never wanted to hurt him, you have to know that.”

She doesn't respond to that, not really. “The worst thing,” she says, as if he never said anything. “The worst thing was that I knew why you'd left. I knew as soon as we got to Lancelot's to pick up Yasmin, and I didn't say anything. Arthur loves her so much, I couldn't take that away from him any more than you could, even if it was the only way he could have you back again.

“And then one day, just after Yasmin turned three, he was putting her to bed while I tidied the kitchen. I heard him say goodnight to her and her bedroom door closing, then he came downstairs. I waited for him to come help me finish up, but he didn't, and then when I went into the hall to see where he was the front door was open. He left his keys and phone behind, just like you did, and he was just gone. He stayed out all night, and then when Uther brought him back in the morning he looked at me and I knew he knew.

“‘She's still mine,’ he told me, and his eyes… It was like you'd disappeared on us all over again, Merlin. ‘Yasmin is my daughter, and you will not take that from me,’ he said, and he wasn't even angry, not really. He was just empty, and he told me he'd be seeing a lawyer as soon as he could, but that I should call Lancelot and the three of us were going to sit down and tell our daughter the truth. ‘I won't have her hating him the same way Morgana did my father when she found out,’ he told me, and then he said it again: ‘she's still mine.’

“And she is,” Gwen finishes, as Yasmin comes tearing through the door, a wad of papers clutched in her hands. “She's all of ours, and she’ll be yours, too, when you're ready.”

“Hold these, Mummy,” Yasmin says, thrusting her pictures and her bag and her everything else into Gwen's arms, then reaching up and taking Merlin's hand, her grip just as intense as Merlin remembers it being when she was a baby.

"Come on,” she says, setting off walking and pulling him after her, as though they've kept her waiting rather than the other way around. “Lancelot is making a special tea for you, Merlin, and he said if we’re home in time I can help.”

Gwen smiles, shuffling Yasmin’s many belongings around until she can take Yasmin's other hand. “I'm sure Lancelot will wait for you,” she says, refusing to let Yasmin drag them all into her breakneck pace. “So we’re going to walk sensibly, and on the way you can tell us everything you've learnt today.

* * *

If dinner with Ellie and Mithian was fun, dinner with Elyan was informative, and dinner with Gwen, Lance and Yasmin was somehow both, dinner with Percival is just plain uncomfortable. As Merlin predicted, Gwaine and Percy spend the whole meal eyeing each other up, the only conversation around the table is far too flirtatious for Merlin's comfort, and he really can't get out of there quick enough when he's finished eating.

Gwaine doesn't come back to the hotel with him, either.

* * *

Merlin doesn't hear from Gwaine until mid-afternoon on Friday, and even then it's just a text, full of random keypad smashes and a disturbingly graphic image constructed entirely of punctuation marks. He doesn't bother to reply, just resumes rummaging through his bags for something to wear to his oh-God-is-this-a-date-or-not with Arthur. He can't dress up too much, because it's only a meal at Arthur's, maybe only a meal between mates, but after the conversation with Gwen and all the long, lingering looks he exchanged with Arthur at the wedding and the reception and the park and their lunch…

Fuck it. Merlin is dressing up.

* * *

 

He arrives at Arthur's house in time to hold the bag of curry Arthur has bought them while the other man digs out his keys, but even the smell of the world's best butter chicken (God, he's missed living here) isn't enough to distract him from the giant dragon key ring Arthur finally unearths from his pocket.

“I gave you that,” he says, surprise dragging the words from him as he remembers the Christmas he was to skint to get anyone anything other than key rings. “You said it was ridiculous and impractical and you wouldn't use it in a month of Sundays.”

"And it took me two minutes to get it out of my pocket,” Arthur answers, pushing the door open with none of the drama Merlin is used to requiring at his own house. “That rather proves my point, I think.”

"And yet you're using it anyway, aren't you?” Merlin teases, kicking his shoes off next to the front door and following Arthur towards the kitchen.

Arthur turns back long enough for Merlin to see that he's rolling his eyes. “Needs must,” he says, then proceeds to make so much noise getting plates and glasses from the cupboards and cutlery from the drawer that Merlin decides against continued needling.

"Thank you,” he says instead, ladling spoonfuls of curry onto the plate Arthur puts on the table before him. “God, I've missed this,” he says, inhaling deeply, though he's talking just as much about the company as he is the food.

"Yeah?” Arthur asks, smiling at him as he holds his wineglass up in a silent toast.

“Yeah.”

* * *

 

They don't talk much after that, just indulge in good food and a lot of mutual staring, until Merlin has used a chunk of naan bread to mop the last spots of sauce up off his plate and he's too full to even consider eating more.

“I've missed this,” he says again, this time mostly to himself, and Arthur just smiles.

“Come on, if you're finished,” Arthur says, picking up both their glasses and the half-drunk bottle of wine on the table. “There's something I want to show you.” He stalks from the kitchen without waiting for a response, leading Merlin to the door he remembers leading to the living room then waving the hand holding the glasses in a clear instruction for Merlin to enter first.

Intrigued, Merlin obeys, though he makes it only a few steps into the room before freezing, his heart hammering against his ribs at the sight of something he thought was lost.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Arthur says, his voice soft and far too close, as Merlin walks slowly towards the photos that used to be his, the wall that so closely mirrors the one he used to have.

There are more pictures now, of course. Four years is a lot of time to cover, a lot of birthdays and Christmases and Halloweens, so the photos spread further than they did before, covering more ground in a way that is both figurative and entirely literal.

“You took them all,” Merlin says, tracing his finger through the air above them as he recalls special occasions and occasions that just ended up being special, surprising himself with how many he can remember exactly, after spending so long trying to forget.

“Not quite,” Arthur says, still standing behind Merlin, so close that Merlin can feel his breath on the back of his neck. Merlin’s tracing finger carries on moving, stopping dead-centre, hovering over the only patch of wall that remains bare. “But yes, all that you left behind.”

“How?” Merlin asks, too unsure of what he’s actually asking to finish the question, but he hopes Arthur understands enough to answer it anyway.

“I walked past your flat every single day for months,” Arthur answers, not pausing for the apology Merlin hopes he knows he wants to make. “I don’t- I knew you were gone, because you wouldn’t have just vanished if you’d ever planned on coming back, but I had to know, and then one day, there were people dragging your stuff out onto the street, and on top of the stack there was a box and... I couldn’t just leave them, you know?”

“I know,” Merlin agrees, thinking of the framed photo of Arthur and Gwen’s wedding, the only one he took with him when he left, and how it’s sat facedown in his sock drawer for years, too painful for him to look at but too precious for him to consider being without. “Arthur, I...”

He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence, so instead he just moves on, his hand shifting right, away from the hole he has the missing piece to and on to the most obvious of the new photos: Yasmin, wearing what has to be her brand new school uniform, grey skirt and a blue jumper with sleeves that cover all but the tips of her fingers, grinning a gap-toothed grin at the camera.

“It’s funny,” Arthur says, barely above a whisper, and Merlin thinks he must have stepped even closer, though God alone knows how that ought to be possible. “I was so angry with you for so long. I went years without even being able to open the box of your photos, and then one day I looked at Yasmin and... I just knew.”

Merlin turns, slowly, waiting for the accusation he’s sure must be about to follow, but all there is is Arthur, exactly how Merlin remembers him, the bottle of wine in one hand and their glasses in the other, and for a long time all Merlin can do is stare and all Arthur does is stare back.

“You knew,” he manages eventually, taking the glasses when Arthur pushes them towards him. He tries not to flinch as Arthur’s hand wraps around his, holding it steady while he pours the wine, but he fails, and,

“I know,” Arthur answers, his breath warm against Merlin’s skin, wine-sweet against Merlin’s lips, and Merlin realises they’re not just talking about Gwen and Lancelot and Yasmin, not anymore. “Why didn’t you tell me, Merlin?”

Arthur puts the wine bottle on the table, his gaze never leaving Merlin’s, his body never moving so much as a millimetre away from him, and Merlin can’t think, he can’t, not when Arthur is all he can see. “You know why, Arthur,” he says, as Arthur takes the wine glasses from him too, still not stepping back, and Merlin feels his tongue dart out to wet his lips, watches as Arthur’s eyes drift down from his own to follow the motion. “I couldn’t hurt you like that.”

“You leaving hurt me,” Arthur says, his gaze dropping lower, watching Merlin’s throat as he swallows, and he somehow moves even closer, so close that Merlin would be retreating if it was anyone else, calling an end to whatever this is, but... Arthur. Arthur.

“It hurt me, too,” Merlin confesses, his honesty a mirror of Arthur’s own, the words pulled from him without his consent, without him even realising there’s a chance they might be. “You have no idea how much, Arthur.”

There’s silence between them for a long moment, silence and staring and slow, shaky breaths, and slowly, so slowly, Merlin reaches a hand across the into the space between them, half expecting to encounter something solid there, almost surprised when the only thing that stops him is Arthur’s shoulder, solid and substantial.

When Arthur neither retreats nor offers any kind of protest, Merlin raises his other hand, this one curling around the back of Arthur’s neck, not pulling him in or holding him back, just resting there, and, “Why?” Arthur asks, quiet enough that it doesn’t break whatever moment is building between them, managing to be part of it rather than an interruption.

“You know why, Arthur,” Merlin says again, because he can’t think of any question Arthur could possibly want to ask him that doesn’t have the same answer, doesn’t have the answer Arthur has to know by now.

Arthur’s hands are on Merlin’s hips, though Merlin isn’t quite sure when they got there, whether it was before or after or at the same time as his own hands moved, is even less sure if it matters which of them moved first, who made the invitation and who accepted it. The important thing is that someone did, and that the other hasn’t turned him down, and when Arthur smiles Merlin can feel it against his mouth, can feel his words just as much as he hears them. “You could say it anyway,” he breathes, and maybe Merlin can taste his words, too, or maybe that’s just because he’s closed the last of the tiny, tiny distance between them, pressing his mouth to Arthur’s as he’s wanted to his whole life, he thinks.

For a moment that’s all it is, just the two of them, lips touching but unmoving, together but not, and then Arthur moves, crowding forwards until Merlin is trapped between him and the wall, but trapped isn’t at all the right world because it implies that he could want to be somewhere else and he doesn’t. Not now, not ever, not when Arthur’s mouth opens against his, not demanding but asking, inviting, maybe even welcoming, and Merlin kisses him for real, the first time ever, licking his way inside and drinking up the noises that Arthur makes, not quite whimpers but definitely close to it, each one sending a shiver down Merlin’s spine, causing Merlin to drag him closer and closer, half because he needs the support and half just because he can, because Arthur isn’t pulling away.

“Stay,” Arthur says, the word pressed against Merlin’s lips, then again against Merlin’s neck, a third time dragged over Merlin’s collarbones as he peels his shirt off and abandons it on the floor, and,

“Always,” Merlin answers the first time, and again the second, and then, “Always, Arthur, I promise.”

And Arthur doesn’t beg, but then with Merlin’s he’s never really had to.


End file.
